The Other Engineer
by E.E. Smith
Summary: Being aboard the Starship Enterprise was a dream come true for Rose, being Chief Engineer was beyond anything she could have imagined. This documents her adventures through space as a Starfleet Officer and the relationship that buds between her and a Scottish colleague that she tried to keep purely professional. Tried. Rating will increase. Scotty/OFC (Full description in prologue)
1. Prologue

**A/N: There is entirely too little Scotty love out there, and I am rather in love with Simon Pegg so I had to have a go at one myself. **

**This story is focussed mainly on the romantic relationship between my OFC and Scotty, but will also obviously involve friendships wider in the group and a little action and adventure on the missions. Just so you have an idea of the setting, the story after the prologue picks up mid-way through the first movie, but the story does not take place entirely within the events of the film, only the first couple of chapters. It's pretty much going to bridge the gap between the first movie and **_**Into Darkness. **_

_**Rating**_**: I have to warn that there will be quite a bit of smut later on in the story, so if you don't like it, (you're missing out!) be aware of it now. I'm also a big fan of bad language, so yeah, there's that. **

**Enough babbling, please enjoy and review.**

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_**-Prologue-**_

Starfleet Academy: a place that Rose had dreamed of being since childhood. From the moment she knew that not only was the universe inconceivably huge and beautifully complicated, but that it was possible for it to be explored, she had thought of little less, and had geared her whole life to becoming an adventurer of space. She learned about starships and technology as a child, and by the time she was twelve years old, she was chomping at the bit to explore the stars, and taking apart car engined in her garage. Before she could become an adventurer though, she had to learn to do so without getting herself or others killed, which meant on this particularly balmy summer afternoon, sitting through a xeno-linguistics class and feeling mind-numbingly bored.

Nyota sat beside her, diligently listening and taking notes, offering answers, and speaking every language with perfect form and diction. Rose had tried her best to pay attention, but as the class wore on she found herself watching the clock, chin in hand and drawing swirls on her PADD note page with her stylus. She could think of little else but the fact that the air conditioning seemed not to be working very strongly, and her burgundy uniform skirt was beginning to stick to her thighs.

"Bartlett." For a moment, it took Rose a minute to remember that this was her surname, and she snapped to attention. The professor was addressing her. "How might a Klingon express thanks?" He asked, and she felt people looking round at her, and felt that horrible nervous feeling when you don't quite know the answer and the room in silent. She wished for Nyota to give her the answer telepathically or something, but had no such luck.

"A Klingon wouldn't." She joked, laughing nervously, and got a few low chuckles around the room as well. She felt slightly more relaxed as she scrambled through her mind to find the answer. The professor offered a small smile, but still waited for her answer. "Erm..." She glanced at Nyota, who subtly made a 'ka' mime with her mouth. "Uh, _kathloe_?" She tried, and Nyota and her teacher's expression told her she was wrong.

"Close, Bartlett, but not quite close enough." He turned to the touchscreen glass board, and moved the word to the forefront. She sighed slightly, and shrugged. "Remember, '_kaht-loe'_, from the throat." He illustrated, and continued with the lesson until its grateful end.

"You really should pay more attention you know, Rose." Nyota half-heartedly scolded as they made their way back to the dorm room.

Rose chuckled and straightened her bag on her shoulder. "I'll be _fine_. I'm into the practical stuff, not all that language and diplomacy bollocks." Nyota raised her eyebrow. "No offense, obviously." She said sheepishly. "It's just not my thing, I like the sciences a lot, but engines and electrics and motors: that's where I belong."

"I know, and you're very talented at it." Nyota conceded. "Just don't get yourself in trouble by flunking."

They walked through a vast outdoor courtyard to where their halls of residence were situated. The sun beat down relentlessly, and Rose was slightly worried her bare pale skin would burn in the short time. Having lived most of her life in the North of England, the weather of the American Midwest was a change to say the least. She briefly lamented the material of her uniform when her eye was caught by a certain Vulcan walking with his usual stoic disposition, hands behind his back and his spine straight, he walked in the opposite direction to them, and Rose noticed, (though Nyota thought she didn't), the eyes of her friend and the half-Vulcan meet. Rose grinned, and waited until they got a ways past him before speaking.

"So, what's going on with you and Pointy then?" She asked, raising her eyebrow.

"What do you mean?" Nyota replied too quickly, and Rose snorted.

"Oh, _please_ spare me. Don't think I don't know about your little after-class sessions with Mr Spock. You even told me yourself that you really like him." They went inside the door to the building, and Rose was glad to be back where there was air conditioning.

Nyota glanced away from Rose's amused and suspicious looks.

"I do, but not in _that way._ It's purely professional." They both got into the gleaming white elevator, Nyota still not meeting her friend's eye.

"Nyota Uhura. You look me in the face and say that." Rose crossed her arms, leaning on one leg and looking dead at the girl. Nyota straightened her face, and imitated her stance, looking back at her.

"It's purely... professional." She said straight, but the way Rose looked at her made the corner of her mouth quirk slightly, as her expression cracked.

"Aha! Someone's knickers are on fire. Probably due to Mr Spock." Rose giggled at her own joke.

"Oh, come on." Nyota batted her arm but couldn't help but laugh. "Speaking of: what happened to that John guy you mentioned?"

Rose blushed slightly at the memory as they arrived at the door of their shared apartment.

"I haven't heard for him for a while. I think he said he was only here temporarily." She shrugged and swiped her card; the door slid open with a hiss. She pushed the memory to the back of her mind, and they stepped inside. They found Gaila in all her green glory, on her bed, wearing only underwear and her curly red hair slightly messier than usual.

"Look I like you but you can't keep trying to seduce me like this." Rose held her hands up, crossing to her bed at the other end of the room.

"Oh haha, you wish." Gaila opened her magazine, and the two other women wasted no time in peeling off their insulating uniforms and dumping them on the bed.

"Hey, the weirdest thing happened earlier on." Nyota took off her top as Rose folded dropped her own shirt in the laundry basket and unzipped her skirt. "I was in the Long Range Sensor Lab earlier, tracking solar systems, and I picked up an emergency transmission." Rose dropped her skirt in the laundry, and frowned.

"From what kind of craft?" She asked, and squirted a little vanilla scented spray on her skin, getting rid of the stickiness and any unwanted sweaty smell.

"A Klingon prison planet." She said, frowning a little herself.

"No," Gailia sounded a little more disinterested than usual and Rose raised her eyebrow as she found some shorts in her drawer, "The Klingon Armada was destroyed. 47 ships."

"Was it definitely Klingon?" Rose asked, thinking it odd.

"Definitely." Nyota replied confidently.

Gaila sat up on the bed and looped her arms round her legs.

"Are you down in the workshop tonight?" She asked Rose.

"Sure am. Got some new plasma converter parts to have a look at. They're tricky little buggers to put together, so intricate though. The design is actually quite beautiful if you actually look at it." Rose always enjoyed talking about things of that nature though seemed oblivious to the bored looks she received when she went on about it. Either that or she didn't really care.

"So... Are you not going to the lab tonight?" Gaila asked Nyota, looking and sounding pretty sheepish now. It was quite obvious what was going on then, and Rose was surprised she hadn't noticed before, she and Nyota sent each other a raised eyebrow.

"Gaila, who is he?" Nyota asked flatly.

"Who's who?" She played innocent.

"Come on, why else would you be in such a rush for us to leave? The mouth-breather under your bed is who's who." Rose was more amused than annoyed in honesty. 'Who,' made himself apparent quickly, popping up from under Galia's bed in just his white pants and looking pink skinned.

"You can hear me breathing?" He said in disbelief. Rose saw him take a good look at her in her undressed state and picked up a cushion. Kirk was unsure whether she was going to smack him with it or not, she ended up holding it in front of herself.

"You," Nyota said angrily, like she knew him, scooping up his clothes as he shuffled out, "You're gonna fail." She shoved the clothes into his arms.

"If I pass, will you tell me your first name?" She ushered him out of the room irately, and Rose bit her lip, trying not to laugh.

"No, I will not." She pushed him into the lift and shut the door on him, not before he could send her a surprisingly charming grin though. Her ponytail whipped round her head as she marched back into the room, ready to give Gaila a decent telling off. Rose shook her head, as she pulled on a black vest with nice breathable material, and a pair of shorts.

"I have to prepare for the Maru test tomorrow, could you really not have kept a guy out of here for one night?"

Rose slipped on her beige work-boots, and put her foot up on the bed to tie the laces. She did get irritated by the constant flow of men through the apartment, but it didn't bother her as much as it did Uhura. Rose was in fairness, barely in the room though, and spent most of her time working on some machine or other. While her two friends bickered, she ran a hand through the messy waves of blonde that had become only messier in the humidity, and was glad she'd decided to chop it to a bob the month before. She picked up an apple from the bowl on her dresser and took a large bite.

"Am I right, Rose?" Nyota said to her irately, arms crossed. Rose chewed her bite a little, and offered her only a shrug. Nyota rolled her eyes as Rose skirted past the two toward the elevator again.

"You just got back." Gaila said to her, as she pressed the button.

"Yeah, but..." Rose bit her apple. "Plasma converters." She said through the mouthful.

* * *

-_**2 Weeks Later-**_

Everything had been leading up to this moment. Standing in the ship docks, shoulder to shoulder with her friends and colleagues, Nyota on her left and Gaila on her right as they stood and waited to be assigned to their ships. Rose felt that her palms were damp, and felt her stomach flutter as she tried to keep her expression straight and not betray her nerves. The next words out of the woman's mouth could determine the rest of her life, and she mentally prayed to Gods she didn't believe in that she would be assigned to one of the great ships she had worked towards.

Usually she would try and mentally crack a joke to calm herself down, maybe notice how somebody had toast crumbs on their cheek or remember a funny movie she had seen. But now she was at a loss: there was nothing particularly funny about this situation; this situation was essentially the first day of the rest of her life.

"Bartlett," Rose hadn't noticed what she had been looking at before, but now her eyes were on the stern face of the superior that stood over them, reading off a list. She braced herself for the next words that would come out of her mouth, feeling her shoulder's tense and her toes clench. "USS Enterprise."

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**So, this chapter was just to give you a little exposition and see the relationship between Uhura and Rose, and a little glimpse into the personality of the protagonist. **

**The following chapters are more meaty, please review if you enjoyed this. **


	2. Co-Chief

**We come to mid-movie now, from this point on the story will be far more linear, apologies for jumping around. Enjoy!**

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The tinny sound of old rock music sounded throughout the lower engine room of the Enterprise that day. Though Rose was in charge of the engineers that worked upstairs, she preferred the lower decks, where she was barely bothered by the hard metal floor under her back or the smell of oil in her nose; she focussed only her task as she straightened the glasses on her face, and adjusted the wires of the thruster generator she lay beneath. The Romulan attack seemed to have let up but the shields were still vastly weakened, and Rose cursed the Narada under her breath.

"When I need to replace her, I am the mind eraser, anything goes." She sang along badly, and in a low tone. A few people up top had complained about the 21st century music she'd insist on blaring out every now and then, but when she threatened to transfer to another ship, they quietened their complaints. Of course, she would never actually move, Nyota knew that: the Enterprise was a work of art, a beautiful thing.

Her only problem was the ridiculous uniforms they insisted the woman aboard the ship wear. The deep red dress was comfortable sure and looked fine, but was not particularly useful for lying on floors and running from deck to deck. She had, however, managed to get away with swapping her sleek black boots for heavier work ones that reached just below her knee and laced; on the argument that it was easier to move on the slippery decks wearing them.

"Those Romulan bastards really did a number on you." She said quietly, holding the metal laser cutter between her teeth as she used her fingers to tie two wires together. The attack had not been kind to the ship or it's people; Nyota had cried over the loss of Vulcan more than anyone, and had confided in Rose that it deeply bothered her that Spock showed no sign of sadness to her, if he had any at all.

Rose had respect for Spock and felt deep pity at his situation, but his decision to maroon Kirk she did not agree with, and couldn't deny that the idea of going after the Romulan bastards appealed to her a little more than returning to the fleet. The desire for vengeful justice outweighed going for the safe option, in her mind.

"Sergeant Bartlett." An ensign she did not know well enough to remember the name of came down the stairs.

"Call me Rose please," She replied, taking the laser from her mouth, and using it to solder. "And I'm a bit busy."

"Doctor McCoy says you need to come upstairs for your check-up immediately." He said. Rose groaned quietly and squeezed her eyes shut. He had been on her for months, in fact, to have a medical but she had always managed to duck it. It wasn't the check on her health that was important, it was the massive great needle he wanted to stick in her to check her blood, no matter how many times she insisted she was perfectly healthy.

"Tell him that my work cannot possibly wait." She sighed, getting back to it.

"Erm, Sergeant," the boy sounded a little awkward, and it slightly bothered Rose that as young as she was he seemed so much younger than her, "Doctor McCoy said that you can either go up to medical yourself or he'll come down here to sedate you." He sounded rather uncomfortable relaying the message, and Rose nearly laughed. She shuffled herself out from under the machine, and stood up, wiping her hands on a rag that sat on her messy desk.

"He did, did he?" She raised her eyebrow at the ensign, and sighed. "Fine, fine. _Music off_." She made for up the stairs, and passed through the water turbine deck and up to the main control room. Her eyes scanned the work of her men and women, and she smiled to herself; honestly, she couldn't have asked for a more dedicated group.

The vastness of the ship made Medical Bay seem like hours away, and she felt slightly nervous. She wasn't sure why though; she was only going to politely inform Doctor McCoy that she would not be having any blood taken on this particular day.

"_Hey_ Lenny, I heard you wanted to talk to me." She said overly brightly, stepping in to the empty room.

"I can't believe you showed up." He shook his head, not humouring her. "Take a seat, and don't be a baby." He spoke with his usual gruff tone.

She swallowed deeply, as she sat down on the bed.

"You're uh... You're not going to stick anything in me, right doc?" She asked, eyeing up the various medical implements around the room as he fiddled with something on the table at the foot of the bed.

"Please, I don't know you well enough." He dryly replied, crossing to stand in front of her.

"Hey, look who's getting a sense of hum- AH!" The shooting pain of the needle gun quickly piercing her neck and leaving again made her jump, and her hand shot to the skin there. He looked quite pleased with himself, and stepped away. "You arsehole!" Her mouth was open, as she touched the skin with her fingers.

"Oh calm down, you've been overdue this for weeks. It's just a little needle." He held the thing up for her to see, and her face went pale.

"Don't put that thing in my face, they make me want to throw up."

"You're not very brave for someone who's completed combat training." He commented, attaching the tube of the needle gun.

"Well you're not very nice for a doctor." She childishly replied, scooting off the bed.

"I'm sure your mortal wound will heal quickly," he concentrated on the computer screen, and she half-heartedly scowled at him. "You'll be pleased to know your bloods are fine, you're still human and you're still healthy." He looked up at her. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"Yes." She grumbled, touching her neck. He sighed and shook his head.

"_Sergeant Bartlett to the Bridge. Sergeant Bartlett to the Bridge_." Nyota's voice formally sounded through the intercom of the ship, and she and McCoy frowned at one another.

"Weird, they hardly ever need me on deck." She said, eyebrow raised.

"Better get up there, could be more Romulan trouble." McCoy stood up too, swiping the computer screen off.

Rose nodded, and they made their way out of Medical Bay, Rose ignoring the ever so slight pain in her neck and the fact that he was right and it actually hadn't been that bad. The distance between the medical wing and the main deck of the ship wasn't too far, and the two arrived in the bright white room in hardly any time, the crew members moving around a little quicker than usual and as normal all focussed on their jobs.

"Captain?" She walked to Spock, hands behind her back and tone straight, she knew when to act formal when it was absolutely necessary.

"Ensign Chekov has detected unauthorised access to the water turbine control deck." He said, tone flat as always. "Do you know anything of this?"

"No, I was in Medical. Did you get a look at them?" She asked; fighting to the urge to sprint off and check no one was trying to hurt her work.

"Two uniformed men who looked to be in a rush." Nyota said from her station. "The Captain has sent men down to capture them."

"Permission to go down myself? That's my area down there." She said, and was quite sure she was going no matter his answer.

"Permission granted." He replied, with a curt nod.

Rose immediately turned on her heel and ran from the Bridge, boots clunking on the ground as she traversed the hallways and turbo-lifts back down to the engineering decks, and skirting stray officers on her way. It occurred to her as she neared the turbine room that she hadn't thought to bring her phaser, and hoped that it wouldn't come down to hand to hand combat if she was the first to find them.

Taking care not to slip, and glancing around every corner, she crossed the water turbine room and jumped down a few flights of stairs until she was on the floor, where her boots splashed in a few inches of water. She frowned, and looked up to see an open release hatch that she had not ordered anyone to open. Now angry that someone had interfered with her operations, she resolutely made her way through the room and the many flights of metal stairs, until she saw a flash of deep red at the end of a walkway, and noticed two officers pointing their phasers at two figures she couldn't quite make out.

Rose stalked forward, arms swinging and face set to irate.

"Hold your fire." She said sharply, stepping between the two officers, and noticing the other two that had surrounded the men. One of who was dripping wet and dressed in winter garb and of course, she immediately recognised the other. "Kirk? Are you serious?" She said incredulously; then cast her eyes to the- very wet- man beside him. "Did you two spill all that water all over my bloody floor?" She almost yelled at them both. The two men looked at each other, and she noticed the slight smirk on Kirk's face, and the look of confusion on the other man's, who seemed to be quite breathless. It looked like he had somehow got himself stuck in the piping.

Something else then struck her.

"We're travelling at warp speed. How on earth did you get aboard?" She asked confusedly.

"Well," the wet man begun.

"Save it. We need to get these two to the Bridge." One of the larger officer's said loudly. Rose eyed him with a raised eyebrow, her slightly annoyed expression making all the men surrounding think he might melt into the floor from the heat of it at any minute. "Captain Spock's orders." He added, a little more quietly.

Rose regarded him for a moment, and nodded once.

"Follow me." She turned to make her way down the walkway. "And make sure those phasers a set to stun. I don't want any more mess to have to clean up down here."

Rose couldn't help but notice how calm and collected Kirk seemed to be after being escorted to the Bridge, while his friend, the wet one, was still quite breathless beside him. She couldn't help but feel a little pang of guilt for him, if he had somehow got caught in the pipes than it was a wonder he wasn't torn to shreds or passed out from oxygen deprivation. Usually, she would be in a hurry to return to the lower decks but was far too interested in the events unfolding on deck to do that. Instead, she stood just beside McCoy, arms crossed and watching.

She had not noticed the slight glances that she had kept receiving from the slightly scruffy looking wet friend of Kirk's.

"We are travelling at warp speed, how did you beam aboard this ship?" Spock asked firmly, echoing Rose.

"You're the scientist, you figure it out." Kirk shrugged, usual cockiness in place as usual.

"As acting captain of this ship I order you to answer the question."

"Well I'm not telling, _Acting Captain_." Kirk flatly replied.

Rose glanced from Kirk, to Spock, to Spock's father who stood watching the exchange with his expression almost identical to that of his son's. She wasn't sure if she felt a bit guilty that it was all a little entertaining. There was a long moment in which Spock did not reply.

"What? That doesn't frustrate you does it? My lack of co-operation? That doesn't make you angry." Rose glanced over at Nyota, who looked on worriedly. Was Kirk trying to get some kind of reaction out Spock?

Instead of replying, Spock addressed the other man, "Are you a member of Starfleet?"

"Yes..." He looked slightly nervous and still quite confused. "Can I get a towel, please?" He spoke with a Scottish accent Rose hadn't noticed he had, and his request almost made her laugh out loud despite the seriousness of the situation. It occurred to her how completely out of place he looked, shaggy and dripping on the floor, and she had to bite her lip to keep from grinning.

"Under threat of court-martial I order you to explain to me how you were able to beam aboard this ship while moving at warp." He spoke quickly and looked deadly serious while the Scot's mouth opened slightly, looking uncertain.

"Don't answer." Kirk said to him.

"You will answer me." Spock said. Rose hadn't heard him sound so threatening before, and she tried to catch Nyota's eye to no avail.

The Scottish man looked between them both awkwardly, "I'd rather not take sides..." He said quietly with a slight nervous smile. Any anger Rose had had at him before had now completely gone and she rather wanted to save him from the situation.

"Now what is it with you, Spock? Hm?" Kirk stepped forward and seemed dangerously close to the Vulcan. The tension in the room was turned up several degrees, and Rose wondered if anyone was going to step in to diffuse the situation. "Your planet was just destroyed, your mother _murdered_, and, you're not even upset."

There was no doubt that Kirk was goading him now. Rose regretted her decision not to return to her station, as she sent Chekov a quick look, he was pretending to be focussed on his screen, but not before sending her a quick nervous glance and shrug.

"If you are presuming that these experiences in any way impede my ability to command this ship you are mistaken." Spock replied, not showing any sign of breaking yet.

"And yet you were the one who said fear was necessary for command. Did you see his ship? Did you see what he did?" Kirk seemed genuinely angry. "So are you afraid or aren't you?"

"I will not allow you to lecture me about the merits of emotion." Spock spoke at a mile a minute as usual, but now it was because he really did seem to be getting angry. It was such an odd sight.

"Then why don't you stop me?"

"Step away Mr Kirk."

"What is it like not to feel anger, or heartbreak? Or the need to stop at nothing the avenge the death of the woman that gave birth to you?"

Rose chanced a glance at the Scottish man who had taken a couple of steps back, sensing an impending fight like everyone else on deck.

"You feel nothing! It must not even compute for you." Kirk made no move to let up. "You never loved her!"

What happened next could have been predicted by no one. Spock let out a guttaral shout, and punched Kirk in the face hard enough so the sound resounded round the Bridge. Everyone jumped in shock, and no one pretended not to look. It was impossible not to look.

They broke into an all out fight, Spock grabbing Kirk and tossing him back, and sending painful looking punches to his chest, Kirk managed to get a few punches in but Spock's blind rage meant that he couldn't be challenged. The crew sent looks to one another, not sure if they should step in or say something or even leave.

Kirk got up, but Spock wasted no time in hinting him back so his back smashed against the control panel painfully, and before he could reply with his own strike, Spock had his hand on his throat, and seemed hell-bent on killing the man.

Rose went to take a step forward, knowing how strong Vulcan's could be and unwilling to watch a man die there. McCoy grabbed her wrist though, and firmly tugged her back, shaking his head.

"Spock!" It seemed her efforts were for nought, his father finally spoke up his voice firm and even. For a moment, she wondered if he were to be ignored, but after a few rough breaths, Spock released Kirk, who coughed and spluttered roughly, his face pink and a red mark still on his neck where Spock's hand had pressed.

The tense silence did not pass, Rose for once had nothing to say; she had no joke to crack. Spock slowly turned to face them all, looking first at Nyota, who seemed on the verge of tears, and then at his father, who of course showed no emotion.

Nobody said a word as Spock walked over to McCoy, not looking him in the eye, and his firm resolve entirely gone.

"Doctor, I am no longer fit for duty." He said, slightly breathless. "I hereby relinquish my command based on the fact that I have been emotionally compromised. Please note the time and date in the ship's log."

With a last shaking breath, he exited the room, Nyota went to follow him but when he said nothing she stopped at the door and watched sadly after him. Rose crossed her arms and swallowed, looking over at Kirk. She suddenly wondered if this were all some elaborate way for him to get command, sure he wouldn't truly go _that_ far.

She debated going to comfort Nyota but decided to give a minute, leaving the palpable silence in the room.

"I like this ship! Y'know, it's exciting." And there the silence was broken by the grinning Scotsmen, and Rose could not say that it didn't make her want to smile as well.

"Well congratulations Jim, now we've got no Captain and no goddamn First Officer to replace him." McCoy said gruffly. Kirk caught his breath, and the ghost of a smile crossed his expression.

"Yeah we do." There was little hesitation in him swiftly crossing to the Captain's chair and sitting comfortably.

"Confident little bugger isn't he?" Rose crossed her arms and arched her eyebrow.

"Pike made him First Officer." Sulu said lowly.

"You have got to be kidding me." McCoy said in disbelief.

"Thanks for the support."

Nyota walked over, and came to stand beside the chair, still looking solemn.

"I sure hope you know what you're doing, _Captain_." She bit, and walked to her station, Rose still eyed Kirk in the chair, arms still crossed and leaning on one leg. She didn't much believe in exploiting someone's emotions to get your own way.

"So do I." He said, seriously, and pressed the intercom button. "Attention crew of the Enterprise, this is James Kirk. Mr Spock has resigned his post and advanced me to acting Captain. I know you were all expecting to regroup with the fleet, but I am ordering a pursuit course of the enemy ship to Earth. I am ordering all departments to battle stations and ready in one hour. Either we're going down... or they are. Kirk out."

The transmission ended, and the crew looked at each other.

"You have got to be kidding me." Rose mumbled, shaking her head. Surely Starfleet would not agree with this?

"Mr Scott. I'm appointing you Chief Engineer." Kirk said, pointing to him and standing up.

"Thanks a lot." He brightly replied. Rose was beginning to rapidly dislike James T. Kirk, and she felt her blood boil and marched over to him.

"The Enterprise already has a Chief Engineer." She said haughtily, crossing her arms and giving him that look he'd seen before that looked as if it were going to set the room on fire.

"Of course. He'll be Co-Chief Engineer then." He sent her a smile, but she did not waver, he went to step over to the series of screens, but she stepped in front of him, fully aware that McCoy, Scott and Sulu were watching the exchange.

"Are you suggesting that I need someone to help me, _Captain_ Kirk?" Her voice was like ice, and she had her fist clenched irately at her side. Scott remained awkwardly quiet, glancing between them both.

"Not at all, Sergeant Bartlett, but Mr Scott's expertise is something the ship cannot afford to pass up on, especially in a time of crisis. He has with him at this moment the formula for transwarp beaming." He reasoned. Her cool exterior did erode slightly at this, her eyes snapped from Scott to Kirk, not quite believing it herself.

"He does?" She said simply, not moving from in front of him. Kirk smirked a little, knowing he was swaying her, and nodded.

She turned to look at Mr Scott now, who offered a small smile and a wave. She sighed, curiosity getting the better of her and her irritation ebbing away.

"Come on, I'll get you a towel." She quickly turned and marched out of the room.

Montgomery Scott hastily followed; she didn't seem like the kind of woman he wanted angry with him.


	3. Try Not to Die

There was something a little bit awkward in the walk down to Rose's living quarters. It was the kind of awkwardness that came between too people who had just met, and it did not help that Rose was admittedly slightly threatened by Mr Scott's aptitude and newly appointed station. However at this moment she was only going to get him a towel and some fresh clothes, she was itching to ask about his transwarp beaming formula. She took out her communicator, and asked an Ensign to bring a red male uniform to her room; the walk reverted back to silence.

"Is every day on this ship so action packed, Miss...?" He asked, trailing off, breaking the silence as they made down another corridor.

"Bartlett. Call me Rose," She said and shrugged, "Some days are. You seem to have seen Spock on a bad day though, Mr Scott." She chuckled a little, and she was grateful that he did too. She looked over at him and chewed her lip a little.

"Call me Scotty." He insisted with a smile, and she nodded and smiled back, glad he wasn't much into formalities.

"Sorry, I have to ask: transwarp beaming? Have you really worked it out?"

"Well, the me of the future figured it out, and the Spock of the future brought it to the me of the now, which meant that I was able to work it out." He explained in apparently the most tenuous way he could. Rose raised her eyebrow in confusion, and he nodded. "I don't totally understand it myself, lass," he fumbled in his pocket, and took out a crumpled piece of paper, "Take a look." He handed it to her, and she tried not to snatch it from his hand in eagerness.

"Oh my God," she looked at the formula on the paper and stopped walking as realisation washed over her, "It's so simple. You have to think of space as the thing that's moving." She touched her hand to her head, and Scotty couldn't deny being more than a little impressed at her intelligence.

"Putting it into practice might be a wee bit more difficult." They arrived at her door, and she pressed her thumb against the scanner until it beeped and hissed open. It was always odd letting something in her room although there was nothing particularly embarrassing about it. Like the others, it was one large room and a bathroom: sleek, white and uniform, the large bed against the main wall was made, across from it was the living area with a couch and a TV, and the door to the bathroom near her wardrobe.

"I can help you put it into practice." She went over to the bathroom, and he stood somewhat uncomfortably in the middle of her room, trying not to drip on anything. She returned with a fluffy white towel and handed it to him. "Although the transporter room engineers are very talented."

"Seems like you're pretty passionate about the subject. Thought you were going to give me a smack when Kirk tried to give me your job." He joked. She laughed lightly, cheeks going slightly pink.

"I love my job." She shrugged with a smile. Her door buzzed, and she checked who it was on the screen beside the door. It was the young Ensign holding a folded uniform. She opened the door, thanked him, and dropped it on her bed.

"I'll let you get dried and changed, be on the Bridge as quick as you can." She made to leave her room and turned back to him as he began to peel of his wet coat. "I trust you won't nosey through my stuff." She lightly warned.

"You have my word a Scottish gentleman." He put his hand on his chest, and she laughed and nodded before leaving the room.

There was something about Scotty that she liked after their first meeting. It wasn't like her to get on quite so well with someone quickly; he sort of reminded her of being at home she supposed, everyone on the ship was so perpetually serious that it was nice to joke and laugh with someone, especially someone likeminded.

She did not have time to dwell on the thought though, it was time to go to battle stations, and trusting that her crew were safe below deck, she made her way back to the Bridge to get a progress report. There was a palpable energy room when she arrived, no one was still, there was a buzz of urgent talk, and Kirk, Nyota and McCoy stood around one of the screens and seemed to be arguing.

"The bottom line is that we need to get onto Nero's ship undetected." She heard Kirk say as she approached.

"Well we can't just go in all guns blazing." McCoy added. "Is there a way to hide the ship?"

"Physically cloaking the ship isn't a problem," Rose piped up, approaching the group. "But there's no taking it off Nero's radar without switching off the energy supplies, switch off the energy supplies and we fall out of the sky." She explained.

"I'm telling you, the math doesn't support any way of not being detected." Sulu said.

"Captain. Captain Kirk. Captain Kirk." Chekov rushed over, tapping Kirk's shoulder and looking urgent.

"Chekov, what is it?" He looked slightly impatient, McCoy and Sulu eyed each other, not really seeming to take the kid seriously.

"Based on Narada's course from Vulcan," Rose noticed he mixed up his 'v's' and 'w's' due to his strong accent, "I have projected that Nero will set a course past Saturn. Like you said, we need to stay invisible to Nero or he will destroy us. If Sergeant Bartlett and Mr Scott can get us to Warp Factor 4," Rose hadn't noticed Scotty's arrival until then, as he listened to Chekov and dried off his ear with her towel. The uniform suited him better than is winter clothes. "Then if we drop out of warp behind one of Saturn's moons, say, Titan, the magnetic distortion from the planet's rings will make us invisible to Nero's sensors." He explained. Rose thought on it for a moment, and honestly couldn't see a problem with the plan. "From then, as long as the enemy drill is not activated, we can beam aboard the ship."

"Aye, that might work." Scotty said, and they looked at him.

"He's right, and getting to Warp Factor 4 shouldn't be that huge a problem as long as the thrusters are properly prepped." Rose said, impressed with the initiative of the Ensign.

"Wait a minute, how old are you?" McCoy asked, seeming unconvinced.

"Seventeen, sir." Chekov said brightly. Rose was more impressed, as well as suddenly feeling very old at twenty-three.

"Oh good, he's seventeen." McCoy said sarcastically.

"Doctor," The voice from the door startled them all. Spock stood there, collected, and as he always was, "Mr Chekov is correct. I can confirm his readings. When Mr Sulu can navigate us into position I can beam aboard Nero's ship, steal back the black hole device, and if possible, bring back Captain Pike." He said quickly.

"I won't allow you to do that Mr Spock." Kirk said. Spock's eyebrow twitched.

"Vulcans and Romulans share a common ancestry. Are cultural similarity will make it easier for me to access the ship's computer and locate the device. Also my mother was human, which makes Earth the only home I have left." He explained, and though his tone was even there was clear underlying emotion there.

They awaited Kirk's answer as he stepped forward.

"I'm coming with you." He said.

"I would site regulation but I know you will simply ignore it." Spock simply replied, cottoning on to Kirk's personality. Kirk smiled a little.

"See, we are getting to know each other." Kirk slapped his arm; Spock just looked at him.

"Right," Rose clapped her hands together, feeling that hum of excitement and fear that came with dangerous situations. This being her first real battle with a ship that she held dear, she was determined to succeed, "I have an engineering crew that needs co-ordination. Nyota, Hikaru, Leonard, good luck, and I like you all so try not to die. Scotty, if you'd care to follow me, I'll show you to the transporter room." With a smile and a wink to Nyota, who couldn't help but smile back, she made her way off the Bridge with Scotty behind her.

"You seem awfully excited about the imminent danger." He said, sounding fairly pleased himself. Rose smiled at him, not slowing her pace as they stepped in the Transporter Room.

"Scotty, I'm terrified, and I'm excited. I'm just choosing to acknowledge one of those things." She said, pressing in one of the drawers in the wall and taking out two headsets. "You keep in contact with me," she handed it to him, as he took his seat, "anything you command up here, I can make work down there. This can only succeed with everyone working together. No one does a thing without communicating it first." She spoke at first to Scotty then to everyone in the room.

"You gunning for my job here, Bartlett?" Kirk and Spock walked in, followed by Nyota.

"Apologies, Captain." She laughed gently.

"No problem. I'm impressed." He said honestly, with that slight charming smile in place.

"I'm off to Engineering, keep me in contact." She said to Scotty.

"Aye." He nodded. "Nice to meet you, by the way."

She grinned, "You too."

* * *

**Things are moving quite quickly, I know, but I want to get through the movie and get into my own storylines, see some of the Enterprise missions. I really hope people enjoy this, is not going to be overly angsty or moody to be honest, while there will be some seriousness later on, you'll find I quite like to keep things light for the most part. We'll see where the story goes, eh?**

**Okay, I'll be quiet now, your turn to talk! (In the form of a review).**


	4. First Day

**All the follows were very nice. Thank you. :) **

* * *

_**-Chapter 3-**_

"Right!" Rose moved around the people hard and quickly at work on the Engineering deck, each following to the letter her every instruction, and no one slacking on their duties. "When we engage the thrusters for assent into the magnetic fields we do it _slowly_. Any fast movement will alert the Narada to our presence, and will put too much pressure on the ship." She skipped down a small set of stairs, shouting her words for them all to hear, "You treat this ship like a delicate beautiful woman. You caress her; you treat her right. You don't go skipping to third base on the third date. I am talking to you Benson." A couple of the crew laughed, but did not stop their work.

"Lefkowitz, Ezha, Jones, I want you all on the turbine deck. That machine must _not_ exceed or come short of 225 mph." The three singled out officers nodded and made their way to the deck. She nodded, and took a breath. "Are the thrusters ready?" She asked one of the groups of men.

"Yes, sergeant." The Andorian man replied with a nod, she nodded back, and touched her earpiece.

"Thrusters are ready, Mr Sulu." She said.

"Copy that."

She took a breath; awaiting the movement of the ship, and moments later it began to rise. She went to the area where officers worked on computers and opened her large screen so she could track the progress of the ship.

"Captain Kirk and Mr Spock are beaming aboard now." Scotty's voice sounded in her ear. She pulled up the ship's controls, and attempted to turn down the power of the thrusters now that the ship was stationary, in order to reduce heat and energy expenditure. It would also mean for a punchier take off when they hit warp.

"Copy Mr Scott. Keep me posted." She frowned as when she tried to drag down the power, the bar would rise again. It seemed as if the computer was not responding. "Johnson, are you able to remotely turn down the thruster consumption?" She asked one of the seated male officers. He attempted it, and shook his head.

"No, Sergeant. It seems as if there is a communication failure in that area. It will have to be manually attempted via the valves in the lower deck." He said. "Shall I do it?"

"It's okay Johnson, I'll do it myself. You man your post." She quickly headed for the lower deck, knowing some climbing would be involved to access the power to the thrusters, such was a security measure. She wasted no time in eyeing the ladder situated a few feet off the floor, and jumped up to it, using her only recently developed body strength to pull herself up a few rungs and get her feet on it.

"Rose," Scotty did not use her title this time, "We've lost communication with Kirk and Spock."

"Shit, can you get a handle on them to beam them back?" She continued to climb, spotting the ledge a few feet above her.

"I'm working on it." He said, sounding flustered.

"Good." She said, strained, as she began to tire of the climbing, and pulled herself up onto the ledge. Rose saw the red valve, and got to work on turning it, the task proving more strenuous than she thought. She grunted and pulled, her fingers almost slipping off the barely turning valve. She rested her boot on the railing in front of her, and put pressure on her right leg to pull the thing round, until eventually it turned, and a hiss of steam could be heard as the engine sighed.

She let out a long breath, and wiped her sweaty forehead with the back of her hand.

"Two to go." She said to herself, making to jog down the thin walkway to the opposite wall, where the next valve sat.

"Bartlett, the Romulan's have activated their drill." Came Sulu's voice in her ear. She almost loudly swore, putting her hands on the valve and frowning.

"Where is its path of destruction?" She asked, tugging the valve again, and trying not to panic about their rapidly falling fortune.

"The ocean just outside San Francisco, in the ocean at the moment." He replied.

She was thankful there were at least no immediate civilian causalities, and pulled the valve round, this one moving with more ease than the last. "Copy." She said, breathlessly, breaking into a run for the last valve. She touched her headset. "Scotty, what's happening with Kirk and Spock? Is communication back up?"

"Not yet, but we're reading a small gunship has been taken from the Narada and is heading for the drill." He said.

"Right." She approached the last valve, and tugged it. "Let's just hope that's one of ours." Her voice came out slightly strained again.

"Aye." He replied.

Rose, now with a thin layer of sweat on her whole body and feeling breathless, pulled round the last valve, and the ship shifted slightly as it somewhat lowered. She sighed, and put her hands on her bare knees, making a mental note to eat less junk food and get back on the treadmill as soon as this was all over. Once she had somewhat caught her breath, she made her way down the nearest ladder and skipped a few rungs, landing heavily on her feet.

"Rose! The drill has been destroyed." Scotty said triumphantly into her earpiece.

"Thank Christ." She crossed back up to the stairs to check on her team. "That must have been one of our guys in the gunship."

"Must hav- Oh no, oh no no no." He said lowly. Her eyes went wide.

"What? What is it?" She said worriedly.

"The enemy ship has fired on the gunship." He said, quickly, and she could hear his movement. "Missiles are chasing it."

She broke into a run again, "Can you block the signal?"

"Not at this moment." He said.

She swore under her breath and made her way over to one of the officers that had been on the deck for the longest time.

"Watt," She spoke to the ginger-haired man only a little younger than her, "Can you keep an eye on things here? I need to go to the upper decks."

"Of course, Sergeant." He nodded, she gave him a small smile and tapped his arm before jogging up the stairs again and heading for the Bridge.

"Have we got a handle on Spock and Kirk yet?" She breathlessly called as she arrived.

"Nothing," Nyota said quickly, "And the missiles are closing in on the gunship." She looked at Rose, and though she sounded as calm and professional as always, Rose knew her well enough to see the worry in her eyes. There was a strong chance that Spock was aboard that ship.

"Mr Sulu, the gunship is on a collision course with the Narada." Chekov said, turning round. "And Nero's ship has fired everything it has on it."

Rose looked from Nyota to Sulu.

"What are our options?" She asked.

Sulu seemed to think for a moment, his expression stony.

"I suggest we fire up the ship and attempt to take down the enemy missiles, and somehow beam Kirk and Spock back aboard so we can Warp from the site." He said eventually. "Which out loud doesn't sound like the best plan in the world." He added lowly.

"It's the best one we've got." Nyota said firmly.

"I say go for it, but you have the Con." Rose said resolutely, with a nod. "The thrusters are ready, I'll get to the transporter room and see if they've made any progress with the communications." She quickly left the room and jogged to the close by transporter room.

"Scotty! Have you got them?" She said urgently.

"I think so, it's getting them all back that's going to be the problem." He said uncertainly, fingers moving quickly on the screen.

"You can do it." She said firmly, deeply hoping that her faith in him wasn't misplaced.

He looked up at her, and she saw his Adam's apple bob. He was nervous, she could tell, but he still nodded, and got to work. The ship jerked slightly as it shot over the surface of Titan to fire on the enemy ships. Rose held tightly on to the back of Scotty's chair, watching the screen closely as she saw the radar show the enemy missiles destroyed, and the gunship still heading for collision. Scotty had to pick precisely the right moment, and both silently knew the slim odds of success.

"Enterprise!" Kirk's voice got through on the communicators.

"Now Scotty!" Rose shouted, leaning forward over his shoulder. He locked on them, and triggered to beam them up.

She held her breath, as they waited the brief seconds for the transmission to occur. Rose clutching the seat with her nails. It seemed like far longer, but the beams of swirling white light appeared on the pad, and Rose let out a relieved and shocked laugh when Spock, Kirk and Pike appeared, looking worse for wear but thoroughly alive.

She put her face in her hands, and let herself breath.

"Nice timing Scotty." Kirk said breathlessly, smiling and helping Captain Pike off the pad.

Scotty held up his hands triumphantly and laughed in amazement as well.

"I've never beamed three people from two targets onto one pad before." He said elatedly.

McCoy rushed in along with a nurse who hurriedly went to help Captain Pike and Nyota who went straight to Spock, grabbing his hands and leading him out of the room, tears brimming in her eyes as the group rushed out. Scotty watched after them, clearly expecting more praise.

"Hey, that was pretty good!" He called after them, and Rose laughed again, still incredibly relieved.

"It was bloody amazing was what it was." She gave him a quick, tight one-armed hug around the middle. He tapped her back, still grinning but now with a pink tinge to his cheeks; he hadn't expected that. She pulled away suddenly with wide eyes.

"Come on, we've got to get this baby away from a black hole." She tugged the sleeve of his shirt and rushed out of the room with him behind her, the two breaking into a run down to engineering.

Scotty got out of breath quicker than her, and was having a little trouble keeping up.

"Can ya slow down a bit, lass?" He called breathlessly after her. She looked back, chuckling.

"We haven't all been sat on our arses all day, Scotty. We're nearly there now." They arrived at the door to the main engineering deck, which slid open to reveal the vast room buzzing with activity.

"Oh my God." She heard Scotty say behind her, and turned round to see him stopped in the doorway, looking in awe at the room. "She's absolutely gorgeous!" He rushed in past her, "Look at it; this is a work of art." He touched the glowing conductor in the room, and Rose couldn't help but smile, chewing the inside of her mouth. It surprised her to see someone so passionate about it; no one else seemed to get it when she got excited about this stuff, when she remarked on its beauty. He really got it though.

"I know, but there's plenty of time to look at it _later_. We have to get her running." She said firmly, wishing she could allow him to enjoy it for a moment.

"Right you are, lassie." He followed her down a set of stairs, to where the main body of the workers were.

"All power to the thrusters," she instructed, "get the phasers ready, wait for Mr Sulu's command." She went to her screen and started it up, experimenting with the remote control, it was of no matter in that moment. "We need to get to Warp 4 so you need to punch it hard when we're ready for going." Her voice carried throughout the large room, and Scotty noticed that she kept surprising him that day, her change from the joking and laughing figure of before to the strong commander before him in that moment.

The control came down from Sulu to fire the phasers, and they began, and could be heard loudly from the bottom of the ship where they were. Any moment now the Red Matter would explode and create a black hole. Rose pulled open a large screen that showed the view from the Bridge.

There was a huge, low bang that could be heard in the distance, and they watched as the vast hole expanded, eerily silently, and crushed and sucked the large Romulan ships into its vortex, the black metal crumbling in fire like it were paper. Scotty stood beside Rose, and the Officers watched too. It truly was an amazing sight to behold. But they had no time to watch long, they had to evade the pull themselves.

"Punch it!" Scotty called to the crew. "Fire up everything, direct any flow of energy directly to the thrusters, make sure the water turbines are turning 5 mph faster." He ordered, and for once, Rose was happy to relinquish some of her control. He was only saying what she would.

As she made to cross the room, the ship shuddered in resistance, nearly sending her falling to the floor, she grabbed hold of a railing and straightened herself. Lights flashed, and alarms sounded. She closed her eyes tightly once, and looked at her worried looking crew, who were holding on to their stations.

"Kirk to Engineering: get us out of here." Kirk's voice sounded.

"You bet your arse Captain!" Scotty shouted, running down toward a set of controls past Rose, who followed him quickly.

"Everyone! Stay in Warp!" She shouted urgently, feeling herself begin to panic herself, and nerves bubble in her stomach. She would not let it show though. They both looked at the screen, and looked at each other in horror. "We're caught in the gravity field, the thing's got us." Rose yelled for Kirk to hear. She nudged Scotty's arm over the sound and pulled him to follow her across the room.

"Maximum warp. Push it." Kirk commanded.

"We're giving her all she's got, Captain!" Scotty yelled, holding out his hands. Rose got to a set of controls, and he watched her look frantically for any solution to the problem. The ship jerked again, making her wobble, and he touched her back to steady her.

**DAMAGE TO BRIDGE STRUCTURE,** flashed angrily in red on the screen, Rose growled in frustration.

"Shit no, not the ship." She swiped the message away. "What do we do?" She said to Scotty, her voice shaking slightly, he looked her dead in the eye, seeing her fear for the people and the ship itself in her face.

"What... What if we could create a blast that could propel us away from the hole?" Scotty urgently suggested, eyes wide, disbelieving himself that he could come up with a solution. She could have kissed him.

"_Yes_. That could work, the core." She typed frantically on the screen, bringing up the ship's breakdown and controls. "Captain, if we eject the core and detonate it the blast could be enough to propel us away from the blast." She ran a hand through her increasingly shaggy hair, taking a shaky breath.

"I can'ae promise anything." Scotty added, looking at her. They awaited his answer as the ship seemed to worsen. Rose could see absolutely no solution, and clung to the panel as she felt the ship spiral, and bits of metal and wire fell around her. It was quite amazing nothing had hit them, and she could almost hear the groan of the strain on the metal. She couldn't front anything now, she was terrified, and thought of every person on the ship, their lives and their families.

"DO IT! DO IT!" Kirk yelled, and Scotty wasted no time in hammering down the walkway to the correct panel.

"Clear the area, go go!" He shouted at the Officers and Ensigns as debris began to fall from the ceiling. Rose skidded to a halt behind him. "You too lass." He said firmly. She merely raised an eyebrow, looking disbelieving to the point of grim amusement.

"I was here before you, don't forget." She nudged past him to get to the panel. "This ship goes down and I go down with her." She engaged the core-eject, and they watched as the pieces of metal disconnected, and were launched out of the bottom of the ship. He watched her in slight awe and shock, and she turned to him, and sent him a breathless smile, "Come on!" She grabbed his hand, and led him back down to the computer area, dodging debris as they went. A stray piece of metal bashed into her shin, though the adrenaline deflected most of the pain, and pulled up the large screen showing the Bridge-view again, not letting go of his hand.

She figured there wasn't much point in embarrassment if this didn't work.

There was a moment when the sound and the destruction around her seemed to fade away, as did the angry sound of the alarms, and she waited and watched, and held her breath to see if this was going to be how she died. She squeezed Scotty's hand, and he squeezed it back, and it didn't really matter that they didn't know each other well, because in that moment they were just two frightened people who needed to squeeze someone's hand. It occurred to Rose for the first time in the past moments of pandemonium that she could actually die. She closed her eyes and thought of her mother, her father, her older brother and her little sister.

After an age, a similar dull thud sounded, and a great white light emerged from the hole, expanding in a ball of energy that they could feel take hold of the ship. The light was almost blinding as it covered the ship, took hold of it. And then: it spat the ship out.

The rapid increase in speed caused the ship to jerk. Rose stumbled back and Scotty grabbed her waist to steady her, only ending up causing himself to wobble so that they both fell painfully on their backsides. Neither of them cared though, they watched the screen as they blasted away from the hole, the sight becoming rapidly distant and the view filled with stars on a black canvas as if their eminent destruction had never occurred.

Rose laughed breathlessly, and put her head between her knees, Scotty laughed too, letting go of her waist finally and allowing himself to take a breath, his face covered with a sheen of sweat and his hair dripping. They could hear through the intercom the sounds of relieved joy from the Bridge, and Rose felt an immense sense of relief like she'd never felt before.

"Are you two okay?" Came Kirk's voice, and she could hear the smile in it.

"We're fine!" Rose called back, grinning.

"Excellent. Let's get back to Earth, shall we?" Kirk said, and Rose nodded though he could not see her, and smiled.

"We did it." She said in disbelief, not noticing that her eyes had brimmed with tears.

"We saved the day." Scotty agreed, grinning. Rose looked at him, and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck.

"I'm sorry about not being great when you first came aboard. We'd be toast without you." She said honestly. He gingerly rested his hand on her back, thinking he could probably get used to these nice, soft feminine hugs from her.

"Best on the job training I've ever had." He said when they pulled apart. Rose laughed, still out of breath, and fell onto her back.

"So good first day, all in all?" She asked, wiping some damp hair out of her face. He looked down at her and winked.

"Oh, the best."

* * *

**Phew, pretty fast-paced chapter, hope the flitting around wasn't irritating. The next chapter will be up very soon, I'll probably give it a few more tweaks. This marks the end of where I'll be writing within the movie and the missions and storylines will be my own, until eventually we come to Into Darkness. **

**Again, thank you for all the follows and please do continue to read and review. You'd make a very bored geek very happy. **


	5. Breakfast: Mark 2

_**-Chapter 4-**_

Being on even ground was a welcome thing for Rose, while the Enterprise was sent off for repairs, the crew remained in Starfleet accommodation for one month. Some were itching to get back to work, some were glad to be enjoying some much earned time off. Rose was torn, while she found herself worrying about what people were doing to her- _the_- ship, she couldn't deny it was nice to wake up without responsibilities, and she had been spending a lot of time with the Enterprise crew off the ship.

It was odd the people she'd spent so much time but hadn't got to know that well on the ship. Sulu, it turned out, was hilarious, and often times he would have Rose almost collapsing from laughter in the campus bar they frequented. Nyota would drag Spock along oftentimes, and he'd be, well... Spock. He wasn't really one for drinking, though he was often funny without meaning to be. Kirk was just as cocky as he had been when Rose first met him, and left the bar pretty much every night with a girl, but he got away with it; he may have been arrogant but he was a good person, and Rose couldn't deny his charm, besides, he was the one who suggested her promotion to Lieutenant for bravery.

McCoy had been one of the people she'd known better on the ship; she really had to coax him in to coming along. She liked him, but he could be a miserable bastard.

Then, of course, there was Scotty. Despite her initial feeling of threat at his skill, she enjoyed his company more and more every day. While everyone found him amusing and sarcastic, she had the benefit of being able to enjoy long conversations about engineering and technology, and after a few whiskey's it was hard to get him to stop talking. Not that she wanted him to.

On one particular evening, three weeks into their stay, the entire crew sat around their regular table, drinks in front of them, and Chekov with the one sneaky beer that they would buy for him. All sat having their small conversations, Kirk speaking to McCoy while eyeing a red-head at the bar. Rose sat between Nyota and Scotty, on about her third beer and thoroughly enjoying her night, soft rock and roll music played in the background, and it was good to have these evenings free of stress.

"So, how are you and Pointy?" She asked Nyota quietly, taking a sip of her drink. Spock was too busy talking to Sulu anyway. Nyota gave her a pointed look and picked up her wine.

"Don't call him that. We're fine... I actually kind of hate to say it but, with that incident on the ship with Kirk, he's become a lot more open about showing emotion, and excepting it." She said, and looked at Rose worriedly. "Is that bad?"

"No I don't think that's bad at all." She said honestly. "Of course you want to know your boyfriend has emotion." She shrugged. Nyota smiled softly and looked over at him.

"He's probably one of the most emotional men I've ever met, underneath it all." She said. Rose smiled too.

"You love him don't you?" Rose said, raising her eyebrow a little. Nyota didn't try to deny it, she just nodded honestly, chuckling a little.

"What are we talking about?" Scotty leaned forward, toward them, making Rose breath in the scent of his clean smelling after-shave and whiskey-tinged breath. She rolled her eyes at Nyota and put her hand on his face, and pushed him away. Nyota laughed at their antics.

"Oi, I was just being curious." He said, poking her in the upper arm.

"Being a nosey bastard rather." She grumbled.

"Now, that's not very nice is it?" He said loudly. "Captain, I think she needs removing from the crew, you've already got one genius non-American on the Engineering deck." He winked over at Kirk, who smirked and shook his head.

"You might both be genius's but you're not nearly as good to look at, Scotty." He replied, a little drunk, himself sending a wink to Rose, who rolled her eyes, smiling. Scotty watched the exchange, and no one noticed his smile fade just a little.

"Oh, enough with the compliments Captain, you're making me blush." She said flatly, dripping with sarcasm. Kirk leaned forward on the other side of the table, elbows on the surface.

"You can pretend you're immune to my charms all you like Bartlett, we both know how you truly feel." He grinned, and while he was only joking back there was still something in the light-hearted flirtatiousness that made Scotty not really want to look, for reasons he wasn't sure of himself.

"Oh yes," Rose mimicked Kirk's position, the bottom of her shirt riding up her pale back slightly. Scotty cleared his throat, and swirled the remaining ice in his glass, focussing his attention definitely _not_ on her skin. "Blonde highlights _really_ do it for me." Her eyebrow playfully quirked, and Sulu and Chekov chimed, 'oooh.'

"Does uh, does anybody want another drink?" Scotty asked, standing. Everyone bar Spock and Chekov held up their glasses and bottles, expressing that they did and Scotty nodded.

"I'll come help you carry them." Rose slipped out of the booth behind him, noticing that tipsy feeling in her head as she moved, ever so slightly more ungraceful on her feet than usual. Scotty led the way to the shining blue bar, and Rose experimentally looked around the room; thankfully, there were no blurred lines or swirls as yet.

"You having another beer, lass?" He asked, leaning on the bar.

"I'm alright actually, don't want to get drunk." She leaned beside him. He looked at her, and mentally debating whether she looked better in her nice fitted jeans and short red top she wore then, or in her Starfleet dress. He then thought he might have had one too many to drink himself, as he was paying far much attention to the way she looked.

"There's a sentence I never thought I'd hear coming out of your mouth." He said, hailing the bartender who nodded.

She chuckled, "Oh, you have not seen me drunk yet Scotty. You'd know about it."

He laughed, "I'll make a mental note to sneak some whiskey aboard for if we're ever particularly bored below deck." He ordered the drinks, and the bartender busied himself with making them.

"Looking forward to getting back to work?" She asked while they waited for their drinks.

"Aye, can't wait to get a good look at those dilithium chambers you worked so hard on." He said, enthusiasm in his voice.

"They are rather impressive even if I do say so myself." She grinned. The bartender set down their drinks on the counter and put them on their tab. "Just a bloody nightmare to maintain." Scotty picked up as many of the glasses as he could carry and Rose got the rest, noticing that he had ordered her a beer anyway.

"I would imagine. Dilithium crystals aren't terribly easy to get a hold of." They passed out the drinks, McCoy the only one on the same whiskey as Scotty, and slid in to the booth.

"Yeah, I think one of our first ports of call is to a planet with an atmosphere that supports their production for extraction. We're essentially stopping at a gas station for the Enterprise but on a massive scale." She chuckled, and took a sip of the beer she'd said she wouldn't have.

"Will you be in the landing party?" He asked. She nodded, swallowing the slightly metallic tasting drink.

"Due to my knowledge on the extraction of the element, I will, and if there's a slim chance that the planet's inhabitants will be hostile then it'd be handy for me to be there." She said, crossing her legs.

He looked confused, "Why?"

"I'm trained in hand-to-hand combat." She said, like it was obvious. He gave her a slightly incredulous, slightly impressed look.

"Are you joking?" He asked. She raised her eyebrow, as she often did, and turned in her seat to face him more.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She asked, eyeing him challengingly. He set down his glass.

"Nothing bad, love. Just, didn't really have you down as the 'combat' type." He explained, resting his arm on the back of the booth behind her so that she could feel his body heat slightly. She didn't really know why she kept noticing every time he moved closer to her..

"And why's that?" She asked. The way she spoke the sentence particularly drew attention to her lips for some reason, and it occurred to Scotty how plump and pink her lips perpetually seemed to be. He made himself look at her eyes, and collected his thoughts.

"You're just so nice," he shrugged, "Although, I have seen you stare down some pretty burly guys. You can be quite frightening in fact. Not quite sure I can picture you swinging a punch, though."

"Are you challenging me?" She grinned.

"No, I wouldn't want to embarrass you lass." He winked, and she nudged his arm, and continued with her beer.

The group slowly dispersed over the next few hours, returning to their quarters not too far from the campus bar. Rose drank no more after her last bottle of beer, and as it approached midnight, felt rather heavy headed and tired. She leaned her arms on the table, only faintly listening to the chatter around her, and yawned widely.

"I'm going to turn in." She said, standing up and waiting for Scotty to let her out of the booth, he shuffled off his seat, slightly unsteady on his own feet now, and she skirted past him.

"I'll walk you." McCoy said in his usual low grumble, finishing off his drink and standing. Scotty looked at him, the words having been stolen from his mouth, and sat himself down beside Kirk, who, now rather drunk but surprisingly without female companionship, slapped a hand on his back.

"I'm fine, Leonard." She insisted. "I'm only crossing campus."

"What kind of man do you think I am? Just 'cause these lugs are at Starfleet don't mean they're not gonna get handsy when they're drunk and they see a lady alone." He said firmly, and she knew that there was no use in arguing. As much as she enjoyed independence, she couldn't deny appreciating his protectiveness.

"Alright, alright." She conceded. "Goodnight Jim, Scotty." She waved at the two. Scotty raised his hand back, and Kirk offered a wobbly wave in return, looking hazily at the table in front of him. Rose chuckled, and followed McCoy out of the almost empty bar, and into the cooler air of the night outside.

Scotty watched them both go, and tapped his fingers on the table.

"Rose is crazy hot, right?" Kirk said, speaking louder than usual and slurring slightly. "She's got that whole nerdy thing going on, I like that." He leaned onto Scotty slightly, who couldn't deny being a little amused and disbelieving that this was his superior. "You- you should totally go out with her man. It'd be perfect! You're both all into like... ships and metal and stuff." He said eagerly.

Scotty laughed a little and shook his head.

"I barely know the lass, Cap'n. She's alright, I suppose." He said, massively underplaying how fondly he increasingly thought of her over the three weeks they had met.

"_Alright_? Have you seen her?" He said incredulously. "You don't go out with her I might have to give it a go myself."

Scotty grimaced at the thought, and forced a laugh.

"Think it's time we got a bit of shut eye." He stood, and helped Kirk to his feet. "Bloody commended Starfleet Captain and you cann'ae even stand up on your own." He grumbled.

Rose's fingers were itching to work three weeks before the end of their leave, and found herself in the Starfleet Engineering Lab, kneeling atop the huge, half-built magnatonic flux spill radiator; she was the only one working on it at that moment as she had awoken uncharacteristically early as not to be disturbed. She paid not much mind to how easy it would be to slip off the cylindrical object. She was trying to solve a basic case of miss-wiring, a mistake she had made herself in her early years and couldn't really blame the students for.

"What on Earth are you doing up there, lass?" The voice was unmistakable being the only Scottish accent in the place, but Rose hadn't heard anyone arrive and jumped, almost losing the balance she had on her knees. She peered over the side and saw Scotty, looking up at her, hands on his hips.

"I'm working! Or I was trying to before I got disturbed by an annoying Scotsman." She grinned mischievously down at him.

"I dare you to come down and say that to my face." He said back and she could hear his grin, as he walked round the huge object to find where she climbed up, coming across a small ladder fixed into the side.

"Like I said: I'm busy." She leaned back to sit on her backside, one leg bent beside the small wire hatch and letting the other dangle off the smooth edge. Scotty pulled himself to the top, realising they were several feet off the ground and that she seemed incredibly uncaring about it. She looked very casual in her black cargo shorts and white vest, with thick-rimmed glasses on the end of her nose and the shaggy blonde hair tucked behind her ears.

"Well, I've been here every day this week, as a matter of fact." He said, as she wrapped a purple wire around finger and snipped the end. She glanced at him.

"Really?" She was genuinely surprised.

"Yes, not all of us stay in bed 'til noon, y'know." He carefully sat down beside her.

"So, was it you who wrongly wired the auxiliary sensor?" She raised her eyebrow, still focussing on what she was doing. Scotty frowned.

"_Wrongly wired_?" He repeated. "I don't think so." He said firmly, as if the notion were completely ridiculous.

"Oh really?" She looked up at him, and the deepened lines on his forehead. "Did you work on this part?"

"Yes."

"Then you did it wrong." She shrugged, nonchalantly, though knowing how she would hate it if somebody told her she was wrong. He leaned forward to have a proper look at the set of circuits she was looking at, an indignant expression in place.

"No, it's you who's doing it wrong, actually." He said, with a slight air of triumph. It was her turn to look displeased.

"I don't think so." She said, pushing her glasses up her nose and leaning forward.

"Oh I think so, you carry on doing what you're doing and this thing will stay operational for all of twenty seconds." He said with certainty.

She scowled at him.

"Well, if you think you're right, then put it back how it was and we'll see." She crossed her arms, entirely unused to being told she was wrong. It wasn't that she was particularly uptight; it was just that this stuff came naturally to her... she couldn't be wrong.

"Yeah we will see. When it turns out I'm right, you owe me a sandwich, and not a crappy canteen one a proper one from that nice place in town." He got to work in the panel, quickly undoing what she had done.

"Deal." She smiled, confident in her success, crawling off the contraption to the ladder. "I'll have a pulled pork and stuffing on Italian white." She winked, and he waved her away as she climbed down, moving to the control panel below the huge thing.

It took only a matter of minutes before he was climbing back down too. Rose noticed he wasn't wearing his uniform either, instead opting for a grey t-shirt and dark jeans, which it was actually quite odd to see him in, not that it didn't look pretty good. He'd let his hair grow a bit as well- that looked pretty good too. She frowned to herself at the thought slightly, not really having considered his looks before.

"Right, now, check the auxiliary sensor calibrations." He said, pointing at the panel. She pulled up the rundown and pressed the sensor details. Indeed, it was working perfectly well, and was geared up to use the exact right amount of energy for its job and run to the best of its capabilities. She chewed the inside of her mouth and she could see Scotty's triumphant smile in her peripheral vision.

"Now then, that's interesting." He said with mock fascination, stepping behind her and looking at the screen over her shoulder. "It would seem to me that all of this information correlates to one indisputable fact:" It occurred to her that he was standing close enough for her to feel his breath on her ear. "That you owe me a sandwich."

Rose crossed her arms, unable to fight off a smile while still terribly annoyed at herself for being so wrong.

"I cannot believe I did that." She said honestly, shaking her head. Scotty turned off the screen of the control panel, and smiled at her.

"It's alright, lass. We can't all be the best, can we?" He touched her shoulder with a fake patronising tone, and she frowned through her amused grin and batted his arm off.

"Piss off." She walked passed him, trying not to smile.

"Oh come on. It's alright to be wrong every now and then, that's how you learn." He caught up next to her. "Come on, I bet you didn't have breakfast."

"I had some toast." She said, raising her eyebrow.

"Well then, time for Breakfast: Mark 2."

It was still early morning as they made their way out of the Starfleet grounds and into town. As usual, it was another sunny day in San Francisco and Rose was glad she had decided on a pair of shorts when she awoke, as the sun was beating down hard; she wasn't really used to heat and certainly wasn't one of those people that revelled in it. Sunny days tended to remind her of being a chubby teen feeling uncomfortable in her own skin, with horrible hay fever and sticky burnt skin.

At least she was in a city setting, and not more than two meters away from an air- conditioned building at any one time.

"Looking forward to getting back to work then?" Scotty asked as they neared a diner he frequented.

"Completely. I miss my ship." She sighed, thoughtfully. He looked at her, slightly amused.

"_Your_ ship?" He held the door of the diner open for her, and she stepped through.

"Our ship." She corrected quickly. "_The_ ship." She corrected again, her cheeks tinged slightly pink. He chuckled and followed her to a table. The place was fairly empty on a count of it being not quite 8am, and quiet, indistinct old rock and roll played in the background. She sat down across from him and tucked her hair behind her ears, though it still didn't sit flat, and the slightly wild strands popped over to the side of her face again.

"So yeah, I'm ready to start working again." She opened the laminated menu. "Ready for a little bit of adventure." She smiled, and for the first time he noticed the slight dimple on just her right cheek. It almost made him want to tell her how particularly lovely she looked that morning, and mentally shook himself. "Are you?" She asked, and it took a moment for it to register what she was actually asking.

"Oh, yeah. I have a few ideas I want to try out, and besides, being on the ground is a wee bit boring." A waitress came over and took their orders, pouring them both a coffee and going to prepare Rose's pancakes and Scotty's full English.

"Me too." Rose tore open a sachet of sugar and tipped it into her coffee. "Not just that, but I hope we get a bit of action, y'know? Leonard says I'm crazy and that we're 'not doing this looking for a fight.'" She grinned and pushed her glasses up her nose. "And I know that, but, a _little_ fight wouldn't be so terrible." She sipped her drink, a glint in her eye. Scotty laughed gently and shook his head, taking a sip of his own.

"You young people and your fighting." He said with mock disapproval. She raised her eyebrow, swallowing a sweet mouthful.

"_Young people? _I'm not _that_ much younger than you." She said defensively.

"Of course not," he said sarcastically, "you're what, 16?"

She rolled her eyes.

"I'm 25, _actually_." She made a face.

"Ooh, 25, you old bugger." He leaned on his elbows. She was actually a little older than he would have set looking at her; she looked so young, though she was still very intelligent for her age. He couldn't quite explain the slight sense of relief he got from knowing she was a little older than he'd originally thought.

"Anyway," she said firmly, "are you prepared for a little action? With Kirk as our Captain we're bound into run into _some_ race that think he's an arsehole." The waitress arrived with their food, setting down a large plate of several pancakes topped with copious amount of syrup in front of Rose and Scotty's fried breakfast. They smiled and thanked her, before getting back to their conversation.

"Well, I suppose so. I mean, I like things quiet but it's nice to have things spiced up. Not sure I'd be much help though, a bit more doughy round the middle than when I first started." He admitted.

"You look fine," She said flippantly, cutting into her food, "Leonard would be on you to diet if he thought you were out of shape." She took a decent sized mouthful and savoured the taste; they were delicious. She mentioned Leonard a lot.

He looked at her. "Spend a lot of time with Doctor McCoy?" He asked, trying his best to sound casual as he scooped up some bacon and eggs.

She shrugged, "Every now and then. He's a joy to wind up." She washed down her food with a drink of coffee. "I'm not shagging him, if that's what you're thinking." She said breezily. He choked on his mouthful, and she calmly ate as he coughed and spluttered and took a drink off his coffee to quell it. Pink faced, he looked at her in shock.

"I never said that." He said defensively, voice a little rough and still surprised by her bluntness.

"No, but you were thinking it was a possibility, weren't you?" She raised her eyebrow with a slight amused smirk. He eyed her, unable to give an honest answer.

"Well, I don't know- no." He said unconvincingly, she looked at him sceptically. "Alright fine, the thought that maybe you two were more than friends had crossed my mind." He said honestly, wiping his fingers on a napkin.

"I knew it," she shook her head, "just because a man and a woman get on doesn't automatically mean they're doing it Scotty. Look, here we sit, not having sex." She joked, continuing to eat.

"Look, I didn't _really_ think you were. Just thought it was a possibility, he's not a bad looking guy." He shrugged.

"He's still a grumpy divorcee with a penchant for flu jabs." She laughed slightly. "I think he's more into the collected mature lady type than the dumpy speccy engineer type. Plus, after a couple of beers once he told me he likes brunettes, so me and my blonde locks are out."

It was Scotty's turn to look sceptical.

"Speccy dumpy engineer, eh? Someone's underselling herself there. Have you got a mirror in your room, lass?" If she was going to be blunt, he figured he might be too. She didn't answer, and hid her flattered smile in her coffee mug, hoping her flush wasn't visible.

There was a moment of comfortable silence, Rose absentmindedly ran her fingers through her clean feeling hair, and uncrossed her legs; her knee brushed the side of Scotty's leg and of course both of them noticed. There was that fleeting second of awkward eye contact, and she tucked her legs under her chair, clearing her throat.

"You up to much today?" She asked, making conversation when their food was long done with.

"Was thinking about maybe getting down to the dock and seeing how the Enterprise is doing. Fancy it?" He asked.

"Always. It shouldn't be far from ready to go now, I mean-" The sound of her communicator beeping in her pocket cut her off, and she took it out. "Bartlett." She answered.

"It's Nyota. Looks like there's going to be a change of plans regarding returning to the ship." She said.

"Oh yeah?" Rose replied.

"Yeah, it's going to be this weekend." She sounded slightly like she was delivering bad information. "So, we need to get our stuff packed up and ready."

"Awesome." Rose grinned, "I'll see you later."

"Why didn't I think you'd be itching to get back on board?" Nyota laughed slightly. "See you."

Hanging up, Rose looked at Scotty's inquisitive expression, and grinned wider.

"I think you're going to like this."

* * *

**I really hope people are liking this, I'm going on holiday tomorrow for a week and I'm not sure the place has WiFi but my trusty laptop will be with me anyway. It would be particularly lovely to come back to lots and lots of reviews if you lovely people feel like having a type?**

**Next chapter should be up no later than next week. **


	6. Catulla

_**-Chapter 5-**_

When the morning of returning to the ship finally arrived, Rose was out of bed spritely, and after a quick cup of coffee, stood in the shower massaging the fruity smelling shampoo into her blonde hair. The pressure of the flow of water was just right, strong enough to make her feel clean without attacking her skin. She was looking forward to getting back to her deck and back to work. Besides the work itself, she was quite anticipating getting to properly work with Scotty. He was undeniably very talented at what he did and she couldn't deny far better than her when it came to the subject of transwarp beaming.

She set down the shampoo, and got to rinsing the suds from her hair.

He was funny too, and it was nice to work with someone you could have easy conversation with. The fact that he didn't look so bad didn't hurt either, she supposed. A girl she'd spoken to a few days before had asked if it was true all the handsome men were on the Enterprise, and Rose couldn't lie, she could see where the girl had been coming from. It was Kirk that all the girls liked, and of course, he was a very handsome man, just a little bit too _pretty_ for Rose's liking.

After finishing getting thoroughly washed, getting dry and dressed in her uniform, Rose emerged from her room with her heavy bag slung over her shoulder, slightly weighing her down on her right side. She opted to take a cab to the docking bay, and it wasn't long before she stood on the front row of where the rest of the crew were aligned in front of Kirk, who sent her a nod and a smile when she arrived.

"I should have expected you'd be early." He stepped over to her as she dropped her bag to her feet, grinning. "Looking forward to getting to working together properly." He said honestly and touched a few buttons on the PADD resting on his forearm. "You ready?"

"Absolutely, Cap." She nodded. "Ready to see what kind of trouble you're going to get us all into."

"Wouldn't dream of it, Bartlett." He winked, and moved down the line.

After everyone had arrived, and a quick word from Kirk to the crew, they all boarded the ship and took their stations, Rose and Scotty heading down to the Engineering deck together, preparing the ship for launch.

"Oh darling," Rose ran her hand over the smooth metal casing of the plasma cooling tank, "I have missed you." She twirled slightly as she walked. Scotty watched her; the woman was definitely brilliantly crazy.

"You only saw me yesterday." He said and followed her down a small set of stairs, her walking quicker than him despite being quite a bit shorter. She laughed, as they got to the large room filled with ensigns on computers, with Rose's large control screen at the head. She pulled up the ship breakdown.

"Are we all ready?" She called. "It's nice to see everyone again, hope you're all ready and eager and as brilliant as ever. As you know, this is Montgomery Scott, co-Chief Engineer and a welcome addition to the team. You defer to him as you defer to me." It surprised Scotty how she slipped so easily from easy-going to authoritative. "Formalities done with, let's enjoy this." She grinned at the crew, and turned to Scotty, who was standing beside her. "Ready?"

"Ready," he smiled and nodded once, "Right! Thrusters slowly up to full power! Plasma converters operational, get ready for warp at my command!" His voice carried through the deck, giving instruction seeming to come like second nature to him, and Rose was quite happy to step back and watch.

"Mr Sulu." She pressed the button on her headset. "On your command."

"Warp speed in 4, 3, 2, 1." Rose sent Scotty the thumbs up.

"Let's get going!" Scotty called, and the crew at their stations set into motion the sequence that sent the humongous ship moving at a rate that seemed impossible. It often occurred to Rose that up on the Bridge, all they saw was Sulu pressing buttons on a screen and the stars and nebulae flying past the window, and not all the people below making the thing actually work. As much as she enjoyed being on the Bridge, she thought it must have been quite boring to be there all the time.

No time was wasted in getting to the first mission which was of course Dilithium crystal extraction on the planet Catulla, orbiting Theta Pictoris. Rose and Scotty, being of high rank were on the main deck standing beside each other in front of Kirk and Spock.

"Okay so, Bartlett, you will be in the landing party along with Uhura, in case a need arises to communicate with the planets inhabitants, Spock as science officer and the two officer's accompanying you to operate the extracting drill." He reiterated to her. She nodded in understanding.

"In theory there won't be any trouble from the Catullans, the drill covers its own trace when extracted and their people have no need of the crystals. That _is_ in theory though." She said; hands clasped behind her back.

"Keep phasers handy just in case, and make sure your headsets are operational so we can see and hear everything that you do." Kirk said firmly. "Scotty, I want you up here if the need for emergency beaming arises." He said, and Scotty nodded as Rose crossed the room to speak to Nyota as both put on their headsets and prepared their phasers.

"Aye, Captain." He said, looking sideways at Rose as she lifted the hem of her dress slightly to slip her phaser into the thigh holster he didn't know she wore. Suddenly, his throat became very dry, and he swallowed. "Uh, there's not going to be any trouble down there is there?" He asked a little more quietly.

"Shouldn't be." He shrugged slightly. "The location of extraction is unpopulated, but you never know what can happen Best to be safe, right?" He looked at Scotty, and noticed him send a glance over to Rose with just a bit of worry on his face. He fought off a smirk, and leaned forward. "I'm sure she can handle herself." He said quietly.

Scotty looked quickly at Kirk, and tried to straighten his expression to an unembarrassed one.

"I know." He shrugged, feigning indifference very unconvincingly, and busying himself with his headset. Kirk only sent him a raised eyebrow, and shook his head slightly.

Soon, the landing party stood on the transporter pad, Rose sending a wink to Nyota across Spock who looked at her with slight confusion, eyebrow slightly quirked, clearly not really comprehending her playful attitude.

"Ready?" Scotty was standing at the other side of the glass, hands clasped behind his back.

"Yes, we are prepared. Energize." Spock said, and Rose sent Scotty a smile before disappearing into swirling light.

The feel of the metal pad under-foot melted away and instead came the dusty terrain underneath. It was a planet with a perpetually hot atmosphere, and this particular area was entirely baron land, resembling the Nevada desert on Earth; the temperature hit them immediately, the contrast between the cool circulated air of the Enterprise and the heat of Catulla striking.

The two officers- Simmons and Cole- Rose had instructed to set up the drills had done so, and waited beside them. The crystal itself lay in certain areas only a few meters under the surface of the planet, and so the drills were fairly small, standing at only around six feet tall each. They were fairly inconspicuous objects, silver and cylindrical, but were in fact rather intelligent pieces of technology, able to contain what they extracted.

"You all arrive alright?" Scotty's voice came in the headset.

"Yes, no problems." Nyota said, walking to stand beside Rose, who brought up the drill controls on her PADD. "Everything alright?"

"Perfect. This should only take around five minutes if all goes to plan." Rose set the drills into motion, and a dull whir could be heard as they began extraction. She looked around at the seemingly empty land around her save for a few large rocks and hills. The orange ground met the orange sky in a perfectly straight line of horizon and it was hard to believe the planet was greatly populated only a few miles away.

"Looks like the prediction was right. There's no one around here." Nyota said, flicking the end of her ponytail off her shoulder.

"Curiously enough, my readings show humanoid life-forms only 2.4 miles from here." Spock said, looking at the PADD resting on his forearm. Rose frowned and looked around again.

"That's strange. Readings from the ship showed there was no one around for a few hundred miles. That close in this kind of terrain we'd probably see them." Nyota said, the drills still whirring.

"There is a possibility that it could be merely a fault with our technology." Spock said.

"Doubtful. I personally checked over this equipment myself, and it's definitely all working perfectly." Rose said, certain she hadn't missed anything. She looked over at the two officers'. "Simmons, how long on those drills?"

"Three minutes, twenty nine seconds." He replied.

"Good, I'd rather work this out on the ship after we've got what we need." Nyota said.

"Agreed." Rose nodded.

"That does seem wise." Spock agreed also.

"Enterprise," Rose pressed the communicator in her ear, "Are you getting any readings of life-forms in our vicinity?"

"Not on my radar." Sulu said.

"Mine neither. It's a wee bit suspicious if someone's cloaking down there, if you ask me." Scotty said, a slight hint of concern in his voice, but still straight. "I think you should get back up here in case there's any trouble."

"Not until the drills are done." Rose firmly replied. "There's no reason for the Catullan's to want to harm us."

"There was that disagreement they had with Starfleet." Nyota pointed out.

"That disagreement was resolved over six years ago, Lieutenant." Spock said, it was odd to Rose that he was able to speak so formally to someone he was having sex with, "However, the possibility of them having some kind of objection to our extraction of the crystal is existent, and way may merely be unaware of it."

"If your safety is at risk than we find another planet with the material." Kirk piped up.

"One minute, fifty-six seconds remaining." Cole said.

"Look, we're fine." Rose was determined they wouldn't leave without the material. "A planet with the crystals this close to the surface would take months of research to find and without them the ship may not even get that far."

"She's right." Nyota agreed.

"It appears that the life forms are nearing our vicinity." Spock said, looking at the PADD. Rose and Nyota eyed each other, both recognising the other's uncertainty. She looked at the drills as they began to whir to a stop, and around at the crew members.

"Alright," Rose said, "We finish, we pack up, we leave."

"I don't think you will." A deep, rumbling voice sounded, and they all whipped quickly round to the source. Two, what Rose recognised to be male Catullans stood: they were purple skinned, with platinum white hair and eyes of pure black and slightly larger than the average human, though one was slightly taller than the other. What was strange though was that despite Catullan's being a particularly advanced species, these wore leather pelts and furs in a particularly archaic fashion.

Nyota backed up to stand beside Rose, Spock and the two officer's doing the same, so that they stood in a line, all immediately alert and ready to reach for their weapons.

"Commander Spock of the USS Enterprise." Spock said quickly, speaking clearly and authoritatively. "Identify yourselves."

The Catullans both looked at each other, and laughed wryly. They were nothing short of menacing, and Rose took a glance at the drills, noticing the whirring was slowing as their operation came to an end. She felt the tingle of adrenaline begin to kick in and her fingers twitched above where her phaser was concealed beneath her dress.

"What's going on down there?" Kirk's voice came through the headset.

"Two unidentified Catullans in our vicinity." Rose said quietly. They showed no sign of being perturbed by her reporting back, but continued smirk and one crossed his arms, displaying rather muscular biceps.

"_Please, identify yourselves." _Nyota tried firmly in their language.

"We speak your tongue, woman." The shorter one said, his voice even more gruff. "This is our mining land."

"This land belongs to the Catullan people, who have given permission for Starfleet to-" Spock was cut off.

"We care _not_ what _permissions_ you have, we lay claim to this land, and you are intruding."

"Ah, so then you are bandits." Rose said, the corner of her mouth tugging up slightly. She saw Nyota shoot her a look from the corner of her eye.

"Bandits? Are they armed?" Scotty said urgently; Rose did not reply.

The laughed again, "Clever one, the one with yellow hair. You may stay." One of them said. Rose's skin crawled. They took a couple of steps forward, and in an instant, each member of the landing party had their phasers pointed at the two. They looked uncaring about the weapons pointing at them, but did stop walking.

"Don't come any closer." Rose said, that feeling of tension gripping her as she squeezed the weapon.

"You Earth-dwellers. So arrogant, you think because of your technology and your clever ships that you can take whatever you want." Another step forward, Rose steadied her weapon, knowing that even to stun them on their home planet could reflect negatively on the crew and Starfleet.

"Taking what we have been granted." Nyota said, her voice also hard.

"That is where you go wrong," The taller Catullan said, "We take what we are not granted." Phasers of their own were drawn before anybody had time to react, a shot was fired, and Rose heard the scream of Simmons, and whipped her head round to see him clutching his side and fall hard to the ground, before she dove to the left to avoid another shot.

"What was that?" Scotty's voice came through in her ear with many others, but her throat was dry, everything happened in so quickly.

All was a blur as Rose spied a large rock and ran forward, crouching behind it and scraping her knee along the ground in the process, they fired their weapons at the two attackers, shots missing and creating scorch marks at the ground. Rose pressed her back against the large rock she was behind, breathing heavily, the confusion of the moment meaning she did not know where the others had gone, and could only hear the sound of shots and Simmons shouts.

A beam hit the rock just beside her ear, and she flinched. She took a deep breath and poked out from the rock, aiming squarely at one of the bandits and firing, sending him to the ground, stunned.

She moved her arm to aim at the second, and made to take the shot, in the same moment, swirls of shining silver and gold encircled her arm, and she looked down at her body as the beaming began.

The sound of the phasers melted away, but Simmons groans of pain remained as the dust disappeared from under them, and was replaced by the cool transporter pad.

Rose was still crouched, and lowered her phaser, looking round to see Nyota and Spock breathlessly standing to the left of her, Nyota holding Spock's sleeve tightly and his hand on her back. Cole knelt beside the still bleeding Simmons; behind them were the drills, untouched by the scuffle.

"Are you alright?" Scotty rushed over to them.

"Shit," Rose panted, scrambling over to Simmons and looking at his wound. A hole was torn in his shirt, and left scorch marks, and though it bled badly and seemed to fortunately not be too serious.

The door of the transporter room slid open, and Kirk, McCoy and a couple of officers' entered swiftly.

"Is anyone else wounded?" McCoy asked, swiftly, along with the aid of two others helping Simmons to his feet as he grunted with pain. "Come on, it's just a flesh wound. I'll get ya patched up in no time."

"No." Rose shook her head, still breathing heavily.

"I'm fine." Nyota said, also sounding breathless as she and Spock stepped off the transporter pad.

"I am uninjured." Spock said, less affected by the fight than the rest of them. McCoy and the officers left the room with Simmons, Cole close behind them.

"Are you okay?" Nyota asked her, putting her hand on her arm.

"Yeah I'm fine, are you okay?" She asked, still rather out of breath and noticing that her fingers shook slightly.

"Mhmm," She nodded, smiling a little, "Should have known we couldn't just have an easy mission."

Rose couldn't evenly wryly laugh, deeply bothered that she didn't manage to stun the second bandit, and that she felt guilty that it was her mission that someone had got injured on. The first one at that.

Spock and Nyota left the room for the Bridge, and Rose went to stand.

"Rose, what about your knee?" Scotty pointed out, holding out his hand to help her up. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet. She looked down, the adrenaline of the situation meaning she still couldn't feel the pain of the skin she'd scraped off her knee, and the trickle of blood that ran into her boot. It looked quite unpleasant.

"It's fine," She hissed, but felt her leg wobble slightly when she went to walk on it. She let out a small noise of pain, and winced, "It's just a little bloody graze."

"It's not a _little_ graze, lass. It's massive." He offered her his arm, which she took gratefully, unable to pretend her leg wasn't hurting. "Surprised you can't see bone." He exaggerated.

"I'm not going to medical for a _grazed knee_." She said as they made their way out of the transporter room, irately taking the bud out of her ear.

"Have you got a first aid kit in your room? It at least needs cleaning up." He said honestly.

"Yeah, alright, I'll do it." She felt herself begin to calm down, even slightly relishing Scotty's concern.

"Don't worry about it love, I've patched up many a grazed knee." He assured her, and she smiled a little to herself. They walked quietly for a while; Rose still with her arm looped around his and hobbling slightly on her bleeding and surely eventually bruised leg. That guilty feeling continued to gnaw at her: they'd got what they needed but there was still someone in pain in sickbay. "Are you alright?" He asked tentatively, as they arrived at her room. She looked up at him.

"Yeah I'm fine, I just can't believe how spectacularly wrong that went." She said honestly. "I know no one got seriously hurt, but what if they had? It would've been my fault." She opened the door to her room.

"First of all: like you said, nobody got seriously hurt, and second of all, it wouldn't have been your fault. You're very good at your job Rose so don't doubt it." He said firmly, and she could not deny his words making her feel considerably better. "Right, you sit down." He ushered her to her living area, and she was glad she'd tidied up that morning. "Where's your first aid kit?" He asked as she gingerly sat herself on the edge of the couch, leaving her hurt leg stretched out in front of her.

"In the cupboard above the oven." She said, examining the graze on her knee. It actually looked quite nasty: she'd taken off a good amount of skin and it bled quite badly, and she could see bits of gravel from where she'd hit the ground. He looked through the medicine cupboard, quickly finding the small green case and taking it over to her.

He wasted no time in kneeling on the floor, and taking a closer look at her leg.

"It's bad news lass, I'm afraid we're going to have to amputate." He joked, looking up at her with a wink.

"Very funny, I'm sure I can clean it up myself you know." She said, eyebrow slightly quirked. He laid the bag on the couch beside her and unzipped it.

"What kind of person would I be if I didn't help out my wounded colleague?" He took out a silver canister with a spray applicator, and looked down at her knee. "This stuff stings a wee bit I think."

"It's okay." She sighed a little. She was suddenly struck by the slight intimacy of the situation. Anywhere else, and with people around it would've been nothing, but there was something in it being her private room and just the two of them that made her feel slightly awkward all of the sudden. He was so sweet to offer to do this for her, and seemed to have no qualms about kneeling on the floor in front of her and cleaning her wound.

She jumped slightly when Scotty gently put his hand on her calf and pulled her leg a little straighter.

"Sorry, lass." He said, trying desperately not to dwell on the softness of the skin of her leg: softer than he had expected. She hoped he would be quick about it, as there was an odd tension that immediately formed in her with his hand on her leg. His hand had rougher skin than when she'd had examinations by McCoy, of course because of his job, and there was a slight tingle that crept up her leg.

He cleared his throat, "Here we go." He sprayed the cleansing serum onto the graze, and indeed, it did sting. She automatically winced, and he felt the muscle of her calf tense. "Sorry, again." He made himself focus only at the task in hand as he picked up a cotton ball and dabbed away the grit.

She swallowed, "I don't think I've grazed my knee since I was a child." She said, figuring it was best to feel the electric silence.

"You must have banged it hard, it's going a little purple round the edges already." He said, fighting off feeling quite embarrassed by his proximity to her and how really quite pleased he was that she didn't mind him touching her.

"I'm not the most graceful on my feet, to be honest." She was amused by her own clumsiness, though still quite embarrassed herself, and began laughing a little out of nervousness. He softly cleaned the cut, surprisingly delicate with his hands for an engineer.

"I'm not surprised with these clunking boots you insist on wearing." He chided, and she shifted slightly as she chuckled, causing the hem of her dress to ride up a tad, drawing his eye to more of the skin she exposed. He unconsciously licked his lips, and was glad she wasn't looking at him, wanting to slap himself at the incredibly inappropriate image that flashed in his mind for just a split second.

He really did have to stop paying so much attention to her legs.

"They're far more practical." She insisted, keeping her eyes looking around the room and not at his face, which when set in concentration rather made him want to pinch his cheeks.

"They suit you. Southerners aren't usually into their practicality." He glanced up at her grinning.

"I am _not_ a Southerner." She said, affronted.

"South of Glasgow and you're a Southerner, lass." He grinned. "As my old father would have said."

She couldn't help but laugh, and shook her head, feeling herself once again relax in his presence. He finished cleaning the cut, and used a few cotton balls to wipe away where the blood had trickled down her leg, before placing a large plaster over her knee.

"There, all patched up." He stood, and began to tidy up the dirtied swabs.

"Thanks Scotty, you really didn't have to be so helpful." She said, standing up and experimentally leaning on the leg that already felt significantly better.

"Well that's me, lass. Chivalrous, charming, dashingly handsome." He washed off his hands in the kitchen sink. "And the best Engineer you're likely to find."

"You're a close second." She shrugged, smirking. He turned to face her, drying his hand on a gingham tea towel.

"We'll see about that then won't we?" He grinned. They smiled at each other a moment, and a soft 'ding, dong' sounded trough the intercom of the ship, signifying that dinner was being served in the canteen. Rose's stomach seemed to ache in approval. "Oh yes, it's about time. You hungry?"

"Starving." She said. "Come on, I'm in the mood for something stodgy and bad for me."

The two made their way back to the canteen, chatting on the way about changing the plasma filters and perhaps moving the engineering crew round some. Rose kept finding herself very glad that Scotty had been brought aboard. When they arrived in the canteen and got their food, Rose found herself a little disappointed. Starfleet meals on every day but Saturday were always healthy and nutritional; entirely not what Rose was in the mood for.

"Don't worry love, next planet we stop on we'll find a good steak." He said, eating his own salad heartily while she poked hers with the tip of her fork. She looked up at him from across the table.

"Please don't talk about steak." She got a few pieces of lettuce and feta cheese on her fork and took a large mouthful. He looked around the large room where a few people had arrived promptly for dinner and bustled around chatting. "I've got a secret bit of chocolate in my room." He said quietly, looking childishly mischievous. She couldn't help but giggle.

"Me too. Cadbury's." She whispered, and he laughed.

"Look who's hitting it off. I was looking for you before, Bartlett." Kirk sat down beside Scotty, his own dinner in hand. "And who gave you permission to sit at the Captain's table?"

"We're Lieutenants, need I remind you." She said, taking a drink of water. "And why were you looking for me?"

"I wanted to commend you on how well you did today." He said.

"Well thanks, but it didn't exactly go smoothly." She said, continuing to pick at her food.

"No, it didn't, but you dealt with it very well. Could have been a lot worse and you should give yourself more credit." He said earnestly, and Rose smiled a little.

"Is that Simmons over there, actually?" Scotty looked over her shoulder, and Rose turned to see Cole and Simmons walk into the room, along with another female officer Rose had never met. She quickly stood, and rushed over.

"Are you okay?" She asked, looking over him.

"I'm fine, Lieutenant." he assured, smiling. "Doctor McCoy patched me up, the wound wasn't so bad it was the burn that hurt."

"I'm really sorry that you got hurt." She said, hands behind her back.

"Don't worry about it. You were brilliant actually, the shot you took at that guy that got me." He said, and she laughed slightly.

"I would've got the other bastard if we hadn't been beamed." She said, and he and Cole laughed. "Right, let me know if you want a cheeky day off in the future." She winked. "Enjoy your dinner."

"You too, Lieutenant." Simmons said. Rose smiled, and returned to her table where Sulu and Nyota had arrived and were eating their own dinner, in rather higher spirits after seeing him well.

"Everything okay?" Nyota asked as Rose sat back down between her and Sulu.

"He's totally fine, so I feel a little better." She said honestly.

"You couldn't have done better today, and you couldn't have expected Catullan bandits to have showed up." Nyota said reassuringly. "You were a great leader."

"Was pretty impressive." Sulu said, and Rose smiled, feeling increasingly better with her friends encouragement.

"Thank you." She said slightly embarrassedly, continuing to tuck into her bland food.

"So, what's our next port of call, Captain?" Scotty asked, having almost finished his food, not really one for taking small bites.

"We've had word that a small group of Moraxians on Ilari's moon Jetko have been terrorising the a farming community and taking people prisoner pretty much taking slaves." He said, his voice switching from its usual light humour to his serious 'captain' tone.

"Sounds the Ilarian's responsibility." Nyota said. She had no problem with the food clearly, Rose never understood how a person would rather have a salad than a cheeseburger, but then that was how her friend managed to look so envy-enducingly good all the time.

"Usually it would be, but they failed to act and when Starfleet deployed a small crew to solve the problem, the three officers were killed. We need to get the leaders of this group, arrest them and take them to the starbase on Theta Cygni 5." He explained.

"Can I be in the landing party?" Rose asked without hesitation.

"Jeez, Bartlett. You get shot at on the first mission and you're first to sign up for an even more dangerous one." Sulu said, looking amused. Scotty eyed her; the girl had no fear, it seemed to him.

"Well, I'll allocate you your roles officially but I was going to send you anyway. Along with you, Lieutenant Uhura, Commander Spock and me personally. As well as a few other officers with decent enough training to get involve if a fight should occur." Kirk said, and finished off his dinner.

"Could I also be in the landing party, Captain?" Scotty casually asked. Kirk looked over at him, a slight glint in his eye.

"If you think the engineering deck can manage without you than it shouldn't be a problem, you do have some combat training, right?" Kirk could see perfectly well why Scotty wanted to be on the mission, even if Scotty himself couldn't quite.

"Some, I might be a little rusty but I'm sure I can be of some help." He said, glancing at Rose who was leaning on her elbows, and realised that a possibly dangerous land mission was usually not the kind of thing he would volunteer himself for.

"I'll bear that in mind when I devise the plans." Kirk said. "I want you all to come to me with any suggestions if you have them. We head there the day after tomorrow, so it should be fairly quiet tomorrow."

They continued to talk a while more casually than before, it was difficult to stay too serious with the same people they'd spent several nights drinking and joking with, and Rose wasn't very good at maintaining 'serious' for too long. When it came to leaving for their rooms, Rose went first and Scotty found himself watching her walk out of the canteen.

In this back of his mind, he knew he only to be on the mission because it was too difficult to even try to protect her from the ship.


	7. Dreams

_**-Chapter 6-**_

Scotty made his way from his room to the engineering deck the morning before the mission to Jetko unable to shake the memory of the dream of the night before. It felt hours long although it had probably only been minutes, and it was one of those that felt so _real_ that the randomness of events had not occurred to him until he was in the shower.

It had begun simply with him sitting at the table in the canteen he had actually sat at the day before, only it was empty, and there was no food in front of him. Where his plate would usually sit instead was Rose, with her boots at either side of his thighs, leaning forward so that she was not far from his face, and he recalled that his mind decided her breath smelled like whiskey although consciously he knew she hated the stuff. She'd got closer to his lips, and whispered something filthy that he couldn't remember when he woke up, but he could remember her eyes, dark and sultry, and her lips, just as they were in reality but turned up in the most inviting smile he could imagine.

He was slightly embarrassed his brain had come up with that part, it made him feel somewhat lecherous, and like a teenage boy, but he couldn't deny that a part of him wished he could remember what she said. The bridge between that and the next section of the dream was a blur, but he could remember running through a large ship that wasn't the Enterprise, and shouting as everything fell apart around him, and a flash of blonde hair turning round a corner. He'd run after her, and saw her turn back to him- Rose- she looked terrified, and then she was gone.

And that was it, that was his dream, and he certainly knew which half he preferred, although both made his pulse quicken.

"Are you lost?" Her voice chimed through the large room, and he realised he had switched his body to auto-pilot and was now standing in the lower decks of engineering, where Rose sat at her table, an alternator in front of her and a screwdriver in one hand. She had her glasses on, and her hair tucked behind her ears, looking rather amused. He found himself feeling genuinely relieved to see her.

"Sorry, was a million miles away. Did I look that gormless?" He smiled, slightly embarrassed.

"A little bit. You're down later than usual, wondered if you were sick." She got back to what she was doing, looking down in concentration.

"Just overslept a wee bit. Sorry." He made his way down the small set of steps to the other side of the large metal table they shared. This small area had essentially become their office, and Scotty could see why she favoured it. It was one of the few quiet places on the lower decks, and the smell of electricity and metal hung heavy in the air.

"It's no problem, there's not actually any pressing tasks for today. Kirk wants us up on the Bridge after lunch for briefing on the mission tomorrow." She looked up at him as he sat down. "How come you wanted on that by the way?" She asked.

He shrugged, "You're not the only one who likes a bit of excitement. Besides, if there's anything needs hacking you couldn't ask for a better ally."

She raised her eyebrow over her glasses, her small hands pausing in their work.

"Cocky one, aren't you?"

"Perhaps, but accurate." He winked looking over a set of blueprints. She smiled and got back to work, and her smile reminded him of how she had looked in the first part of his dream, when they'd almost kissed... when they'd almost maybe done a bit more.

They both worked quietly for a while, but he kept looking at her, he couldn't help it, the dream was firmly stuck in his head, he knew she was pretty but he'd never thought of her in such a _sexy_ way before, and then there was that fear that he'd lost her or that she was hurt. She kept leaning forward over the table as well, and he wondered if her dress had always been that well fitting.

Why _hadn't_ he thought of her as sexy before? His eyes followed the trail down from her pink lips to her pale, thin neck, and then just for a brief second lingered on the line of her bra under her dress, where he could just about make out her ample breasts pressing against the material.

He looked down at the blueprints again; now he really was being a lecher.

"Do you mind if I put some music on?" Her voice broke him from his reverie.

"As long as its good." He shrugged, pretending to be immersed in drawing an accurate line on the blueprints with a metal ruler.

"_Music: on_." She said louder. As usual, old music sounded through the room: it being her favourite. On this particular day it was a song Scotty had never heard before, but Rose apparently knew well as she quietly sang under her breath, nodding her head to the music.

_'I saw her dancing with the devil,  
__and he was wearing my shoes.'_

"Do you only listen to music from a few billion years ago?" He asked, she laughed sarcastically.

"I'd listen to current music if it weren't so crap." She said simply.

"You sound like McCoy." He said, smirking a little.

"I can't get my voice that deep." She grinned, wrapping a metal coil around her finger tightly, before inserting the other end into the alternator. She yawned widely, running a hand through her hair.

"Long night?" He asked.

"Bad dreams." She said, setting down the object and leaning on her elbows. He raised his eyebrow.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, nothing too horrible." She shrugged, looking down at the table. He looked at her, finding it slightly odd that she had been having nightmares on the night of his strange dream. "Just stuff going wrong with the ship and I couldn't fix it."

"Don't know if I'm pleased that's the kind of thing you lose sleep about or feel bad for you." He stopped working too.

"Well, it just niggled at me and than I got up for some water and couldn't get my head back down. Ended up staying up reading for hours." She straightened her glasses on her nose. Scotty thought that there was nothing too wrong with noticing this was a very adorable habit of hers.

"You should have come round love, I'm often awake at odd hours." He said. She quirked her eyebrow.

"Inviting me round to your room, Mr Scott? Not very professional." She chided, silkily. He swallowed, she _did_ know how to make him nervous, joking or not.

"You know what I meant." He shook his head, though in his mind's eye could picture her showing up at his door in the night, maybe in a nighty...

He looked back down at the table, mentally shaking himself, knowing he needed to snap out of it. She suddenly looked at her watch.

"Shit, we're going to be late for briefing. Come on." She quickly stood, and he looked at his own watch, not realising how much time had passed. He followed her up through the ship, her politely calling instructions to the engineering crew on the way, him doing the same but without the gentle 'please's' she added.

"So, do you have trouble sleeping too, then?" She asked, as they made their way yet down another bright white hallway.

"Every now and then, nothing a large whiskey can't fix." He said, and she made a face.

"Can't be very good for you." She said.

"Well what do you do to fall asleep then?"

"Have a large rum." She grinned. He laughed and shook his head.

"Much more healthy."

The arrived on the Bridge, where Kirk stood on the upper section by his large computer screen, what looked like floor plans up on it. Nyota and Spock were also there, and they spoke quietly and seriously.

"Ah, about time." Kirk said. "We're just about to get started."

"Excellent, what's the plan then?" She asked, putting her hands behind her back as Scotty noticed she often did when she was being proper.

"Right," Kirk began, "The building complex the Moraxians have taken over looks like this, as you can see, it's a pretty unassuming place, essentially looks like a warehouse from the outside, but it's been totally gutted and turned into a factory producing we don't know what but we're picking up radiation from the place."

"Weapons?" Nyota asked.

"Very possibly." Kirk said, showing the readings.

"Why would they take unskilled farmers to work on weaponry?" Rose asked, frowning.

"We're not sure yet. Maybe they're not working on the main components, if it's a guerrilla operation the Moraxians have going then they could be using many workers and putting the parts together themselves." Kirk explained, and Rose nodded, looking at the screen.

"That is entirely probable, and something that has occurred before." Spock said in is level tone.

Kirk nodded, "There are five main entrances, one of which at the back of the building leads straight down to a vast basement area where we believe they are holding the prisoners. Scotty, I want you to go down there with two officers and get them, have them beamed aboard the ship and immediately taken to medical. We think there are only about twenty at this point, so it's going to have to be done in groups."

"Is that area guarded?" Scotty asked, truthfully feeling quite nervous. It had been a long time since he'd voluntarily done something dangerous.

"Possibly. That's why I want the officer's with you." Kirk said, zooming in on the entrance at the lower right hand of the building. "Rose," he rarely bothered with using her title or surname, "I want you and Uhura accessing this entrance, it is very likely to be guarded so if you can- stun the guard, then you can make your way up the stairs where me and Spock will meet you. The offices of the three leaders are on the upper-most floor. We'll go in together. Uhura, you can begin the diplomatic approach, although I doubt somehow that will be very affective."

"Am I the only one quite hoping we get to put some pain on these bastards?" Rose raised her eyebrow, and Scotty tried not to burst out laughing. The others apart from Spock, also looked quite amused.

"Not very professional, as a Starfleet Captain I always would prefer the diplomatic approach," Kirk smirked, all of them knowing quite the contrary. Scotty found himself pleased with the fact that she was clearly bothered by what the Moraxian men had done.

"If everything's clear, I'll speak to Commander Spock a moment, you can return to your regular stations." He said, and they glanced at each other waiting for someone to ask a question, which no one did as the plan was rather straightforward for Kirk.

When Rose and Scotty arrived back at engineering, they were met with a fairly quiet engineering deck, as clearly many of the officers had gone to lunch. After a quick check of the equipment as usual, the two found themselves in a rare situation: sitting at their tables with little to do. Rose sighed, and leaned back on her chair.

"Don't suppose you did bring that whiskey aboard?" She chuckled. Whiskey. Her breath smelled like whiskey in the dream, her mouth probably would have tasted like it too if his brain hadn't been such a traitorous bastard.

"Why? Do you want some?" He asked with a small smile, and she cocked her eyebrow looking slightly uncertain.

"Did you actually bring it?" She asked quietly.

"Would you tell on me if I said yes?" He whispered back.

"No." She grinned.

"Then yes." He smirked back, and she couldn't help but childishly giggle.

"Maybe some other time." She stood, and stretched out her arms in front of her. "We should probably do a check of the ship's phasers while we've got some free time. We'll only have to do it later."

"I suppose you're right, we'll save the whiskey for a rainy day, eh?"

They walked up out of their office area and through the main decks, and Scotty was quiet as she spoke to the officer's and gave instructions, or told them they were doing a good job. She always seemed in her element in command, despite her age and her general easy-going demeanour. He wouldn't mind working for her if he were an officer, she seemed to be able to strike just the right balance between authoritative and friendly, as he hoped he was doing too. Working _with _her was better though, all the other men didn't get to have long conversations and just generally look at her all the time.

"Your hair's still a bit longer than usual." She commented, kneeling down and pulling up a grate that held one of the phaser canisters below. He ran his fingers through his air and smiled a little, slightly tousling the combed back strands.

"Yeah I'm still not sure about it myself. Used to it being really short." He said. She pressed a few buttons on the metal canister and read the small screen.

"It's not _that_ much longer. You should keep it, looks good." She said casually, placing the grate back. He was definitely keeping it.

Scotty pulled up the grate of the next. "How are you feeling about this mission tomorrow?" He asked, as she knelt in front of him and tucked her hair behind her ear, where most of it sprang back again.

"Pretty good actually. Getting a bit boring round here, isn't it?"

"Are you nervous?" He asked, because he knew he was.

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit. But, I suppose I like to feel like I'm doing something good." She said and he set the grate back in place. They both stood up straight; Scotty felt his knees crack.

"I know what you mean. But I'd rather you be doing something good up _here_, safe." He said honestly, she looked up at him, her mouth quirked.

"I didn't know you were so protective." She said smoothly. He felt his neck heat up and hoped he didn't blush as much as he felt.

"Well, can't expect me to run this deck on my own." He laughed slightly. "Got to have a bossy one."

She shoved his arm a little and chuckled, "And there I thought you liked me."

* * *

**Just a short little one for the time being, but the next chapter is already in the process. Thought I'd write something a bit nice just because the next chapter will be a bit darker and action focussed. **

**Back home as well, raining as usual but it wouldn't be the same if it wasn't.**

**Please continue to drop reviews, follow and favourite. **


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